CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was founded by the generosity of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, in the year 335. It is to the northeast of the Jaffa gate, and is in size about 230 feet east and west and 200 feet north and south. The holy sepulchre is in the center of the rotunda under the great dome. It is built of white marble, and is twenty-six feet long, seventeen feet wide and fifteen feet high. This elaborately carved marble structure, wherein the body of our
Savior is supposed to have lain during the three days, contributes the interest and the attraction to the mass of buildings which together constitute the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the cathedral church of
Christendom. No sacred edifice on earth is the object of so much sentiment and affection. For 1559 years the conviction which created and filled the statement of the Creed,
“I believe in the Resurrection,” has here lifted itself into the doors, capitals, cornices, cupola and fretwork of the most beautiful church of the Byzantine age. Here
Christian belief has stood in mute stone for nearly sixteen centuries over the empty grave of our
Lord, witnessing with a force no words can equal to the fundamental and essential fact of the
Christian religion. Here we have in small compass and under one roof an epitome of the
Christian religion. Here tongues and orders, denominations and nationalities, often wide apart in the great broad world, come together about a common center. For centuries the cry of
Christendom has been an echo of the cry of Mary at the tomb of the risen
Lord,
“I know not where they have laid Him.” From the fourth century the Latin Church, especially, has accepted the tradition as to this site of the holy sepulchre. The spiritual believers of all schools of faith who accept
Christ as a present and living force can not with the bereaved Mary say:
“They have taken away my Lord.”
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