The star, canbe found below the alter in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in Israel. It marks the place where Jesus was born.
The site was found by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. It was Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the third century and sent his mother to discover sites in the Holy Land that were connected to the life of Jesus.
When Helena arrived in Bethlehem, she had a basilica built to memorialize the spot identified in the second century by St. Justin Martyr as the birthplace of Jesus. While the original church built by Helena was destroyed in the sixth century, the one that was erected in its place in 529 still stands, making it the oldest church in the Holy Land still in use.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment