Chapel of the Ascension, Jerusalem

The Chapel of the Ascension (

By the time of the pilgrim Egeria's travels to Jerusalem in 384, the spot of veneration had been moved to the present location, so that Egeria witnessed the celebration of the Ascension at an "open hillock" uphill from the nearby cave; the cave itself had been integrated into the Constantinian Church of Eleona.^[4]

4th-century church (or churches)

The first church was erected there a few years later, sometime between AD 384–390, by Poimenia, a wealthy and pious Roman aristocratic woman from the imperial family, who financed the building of the

After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, the ruined church and monastery were abandoned by the Christians, who resettled in Acre. During this time, Saladin established the Mount of Olives as a waqf entrusted to two sheikhs, al-Salih Wali al-Din and Abu Hasan al-Hakari. This waqf was registered in a document dated 20 October 1188.^[8] The chapel was converted to a mosque, and a mihrab installed in it. Because the vast majority of pilgrims to the site were Christian, as a gesture of compromise and goodwill, Saladin ordered the construction of a second mosque nearby for Muslim worship while Christians continued to visit the main chapel.^[9]

13th century till present time

Despite this act of accommodation by Saladin, tensions between Muslims and Christians in Jerusalem rose throughout the next 300 years. The shrine and surrounding structures saw periods of non-use and disrepair. By the 15th century, the destroyed eastern section was separated by a dividing wall and was no longer used for religious purposes^{[clarification needed]}.^[9]

Currently, the chapel is under the authority of the

• 
  Minaret and outer wall
• 
  Chapel (right) and octagonal wall of ruined Crusader church
• 
  The Rock of the Ascension
• 
  Close-up of the Rock of the Ascension
• 
  Chapel, the dome from inside

Byzantine burial crypt

The mosque adjacent to the former Church to the Ascension is built on top of a Byzantine burial crypt. Each of the three Abrahamic religions attributes the tomb to a different female holy figure.

Christian tradition

The Christian tradition of Saint Pelagia is the oldest.

However, most Western Christian pilgrims of the 14th century venerated the tomb as that of Saint Mary the Egyptian, although the Pelagia tradition also lives on.^[11]

Jewish tradition

The Jewish tradition attributing the tomb to the prophetess Huldah is recorded from 1322 onwards,^[11] starting with Estori Ha-Parhi. Another tradition exists starting in the 2nd-century, Tosefta, which places the tomb of Huldah within Jerusalem's city walls.^[14]

Muslim tradition

The mid-14th-century counter-crusade propaganda work Muthir al-gharam fi ziyarat al-Quds wa-sh-Sham ("Arousing love for visiting Jerusalem and Syria"; c. 1350-51)

The mosque that stands southwest to the former Church of the Ascension, known as the zawiya of Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya, consists of two structures: the upper one, or the mosque proper, and an underground chamber.^[11]

The Byzantine crypt

The underground chamber is reached by a staircase, and includes a 2 m deep, 1.2 m wide, and 1.8 m high cell on its east side.^[11]

On the southern wall and near the tomb, a Greek funeral inscription of the Byzantine period mentioning the name Domitilla probably indicates who the tomb belonged to, even though the belief that it held the remains of Saint Pelagia is also attested from the Byzantine period.^[14]

Archaeologists Jon Seligman and Rafa Abu Raya, who carried out a short salvage excavation outside the southern wall of the mosque in 1995, have dated the underground chamber to the Byzantine period, identifying it as the burial crypt of a chapel that was part of the Church of the Ascension.^[14] The crypt is situated east of the mosque, and lies opposite of the entrance. To the right of the entrance, the cenotaph or sarcophagus stands within a niche.^{[11][clarification needed]}

The medieval mosque (upper structure)

Seligman and Abu Raya date the upper building to the medieval period, and hold an

South of the Ascension Chapel is the monastery containing the remains of the Constantinian Eleona Church and the 19th-century Church of the Pater Noster.

The Russian Orthodox Convent of the Ascension, built in 1870, is located about 200 meters northeast of the chapel.^[18] It now houses about 40 nuns.^[19] Across the street stands the Muslim Makassed Hospital.

Further away to the northeast is the German Protestant Ascension Church, part of the Augusta Victoria compound.

References