Pater Noster Church Jerusalem – The Lord’s Prayer

Today I am taking you to visit the Pater Noster Church Mount of Olives here in Jerusalem where many believe it is the place where Jesus taught his disciples the Pater Noster Lord’s Prayer which also called Our Father.

Pictures from the Pater Noster Church:

For pictures of the Church of Pater Noster – Click here to watch the Mount of Olives Album

The Pater Noster Church Jerusalem, also known as the Sanctuary of the Eleona, is built on the traditional site of Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer. The First basilica at this site was built in the 4^th century by the Roman Emperor, under the direction of his mother Helena, to commemorate the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Later in that same Century, pilgrim Egeria  referred to this church as the church of the Eleona, which means Mount of Olives in Greek. Egeria based her reference on the second Acts of John, that mentions the existence of a cave on the Mount of Olives associated with the teachings of Jesus, but not specifically the Lord’s Prayer.

As for the Ascension of Jesus, Egeria referred to it at a different location where  today stands the Chapel of Ascension, at a site nearby also on top of the Mount of Olives.

The Pater Noster Jerusalem church was destroyed by the Persians in 614 AD but the memory of Jesus’ teaching remained associated with this site, and during the crusades it became exclusively associated with the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer.

In 1915, the 4^th century church had been partially reconstructed but left unroofed.  It provides a good sense of what the original was like. The church’s dimensions are the same as the original and the garden outside the three doors outlines the atrium area. In the center of the Church there are steps that lead into a grotto where some Christians believe that Jesus revealed to his disciples his prophesy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the second coming. The Grotto also cuts partly into a 1st century tomb.

There are over 100 plaques that bear the Lord’s prayer in different languages, including an English prayer written in Braille, scattered throughout the compound.

In 1872, a Carmelite Convent was built east of the Church by Aurelia Bossie, an Italian woman who married a member of the French Royalty and became the Princes de la Tour d’Auvergne. It was Marie Alphonse Ratisbonne who convinced her to purchase the property at the same time that he himself acquired the Ecce Homo basilica at the Via Dolorosa here in Jerusalem. The princess loved the site so much that she prepared her own sarcophagus and was actually buried within the Convent.

That is for today, and until we meet in my next video, Let’s All Leave the Jerusalem Experience!