Places
The stone entrance front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with twin arched doorways and a bell tower, above a paved courtyard.
The entrance front and courtyard. Photo: jlascar (Flickr), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Place · Pilgrimage site

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The church built over the places Christians have venerated since the fourth century as the site of Jesus's crucifixion and tomb.

Location
Jerusalem, Old City
Building
Church (shared by several churches; not a cathedral in the usual sense)
Tradition
Shared: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic, with Coptic, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian communities
Religious use
In use by several churches. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land (for the Catholic Church) and the Armenian Patriarchate hold the main rights; Coptic, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian communities hold more limited rights.
Official website
No single official website: the church is shared by several churches under the Status Quo, and each community has its own.

Map Building location: Apple Maps · Google Maps — the building, not a confirmed visitor entrance.

For most Christian traditions it is the holiest pilgrimage site in the world: it encloses the rock venerated as Golgotha and the Edicule over the tomb venerated as that of Christ. The church is shared, and its daily life is governed by a long-standing arrangement known as the Status Quo.

In the Atlas

Each paragraph says whether it is documented history, a tradition handed down, or disputed.

  • Documented

    About 326 the emperor Constantine ordered a pagan temple on the site to be replaced by a church; it was consecrated on 13 September 335. Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemporary, describes the work.

  • Tradition

    The identification of the site with the crucifixion and burial of Jesus is ancient and was accepted by Constantine's builders; later tradition credits his mother Helena with finding the cross there. Archaeologists debate the identification, though many accept that the site lay outside the city walls in Jesus's time.

  • Documented

    The church was destroyed in 1009 on the orders of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, rebuilt by 1048, and remodelled after the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099. The arrangement between the communities, the Status Quo, goes back to an understanding of 1757 and was fixed by an Ottoman decree of 1852–53.

Editorial draft. Some sources below were read (Wikipedia and Wikidata) and the text was corrected against them; others were located but could not be read, so the profile stays a draft.

  • Reference work · Located, not read

    Holy Sepulchre — Encyclopaedia Britannica

    Address confirmed on 28 Oct 2026 (it is indexed for this subject); the page itself could not be opened in this session, so no statement here has been checked against it.

  • Primary source · Located, not read

    Life of Constantine, book 3, chapters 25–40 — Eusebius of Caesarea

    The contemporary account of Constantine's building. Not read in this session.

  • Secondary study · Located, not read

    Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine — Raymond Cohen — Oxford University Press (2008)

    For the Status Quo and the shared custody. Bibliographic details are not yet confirmed against a catalogue record, and the book has not been read for this profile.

  • Official source · Located, not read

    Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls — UNESCO World Heritage Centre

    Address confirmed on 28 Oct 2026 (it is indexed for this subject); the page itself could not be opened in this session, so no statement here has been checked against it.

  • Reference work · Read in a build session

    Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Wikipedia (English)

    Read on 28 Oct 2026 at revision 1382239358, fetched by the research workflow (research/fetched/places/church-of-the-holy-sepulchre/wikipedia.txt). A general reference work, not a scholarly source; the statements here were checked against it.

  • Reference work · Read in a build session

    Wikidata item Q187702 (Church of the Holy Sepulchre) — Wikidata

    Read on 28 Oct 2026: instance of, religion, diocese, coordinates and official website.