Mount of Olives

Overview

The Mount of Olives is a ridge east of Jerusalem's Old City. Jews, Christians, and Muslims connect the ridge with burial, judgment, prophecy, and events in the life of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. The western slope holds the foremost burial ground in Jewish tradition, with tens of thousands of graves laid over thousands of years and still in use today.

Present

The Mount of Olives is located in East Jerusalem. The Jewish cemetery is still active and managed by Jewish burial societies. The Christian sites are held by several churches: Franciscan friars maintain the Garden of Gethsemane and the adjoining Church of All Nations, Russian Orthodox communities hold the Church of Mary Magdalene and a convent near the summit, and Carmelite sisters run the Church of the Pater Noster. The Chapel of the Ascension, which marks the spot where Christians hold that Jesus rose to heaven, is owned by the Islamic Waqf of Jerusalem, the Muslim body that administers religious endowments in the city, and is open to visitors of all faiths. Under a long-standing arrangement among Jerusalem's religious communities, the Waqf allows Christian groups to hold services there each year on the feast marking the ascension.

Religious Significance

Judaism (from the first millennium BCE) The Mount of Olives holds the burial ground most central to Jewish tradition, spanning several thousands of years. Jewish tradition holds that the resurrection of the dead will begin on the Mount of Olives, when the Messiah, the awaited deliverer, arrives.

Christianity (from the 1st century CE) Christians revere the mount for events in the final days of Jesus. At the Garden of Gethsemane, an olive grove at its foot, Christians hold that Jesus prayed on the night of his capture before he was crucified the next day. Higher up, churches mark where Christians hold that he wept over Jerusalem and taught his followers the central Christian prayer. At the summit, the Chapel of the Ascension marks where Christians believe Jesus rose to heaven.

Islam (from the 7th century CE) Muslims believe that at the end of time a bridge will span from the Mount of Olives to Temple Mount, the walled hilltop in Jerusalem's Old City that is the third-holiest site in Islam, for the final judgment. The Chapel of the Ascension complex holds a shrine Muslims venerate as the tomb of Rabia al-Adawiyya, an influential 8th-century female mystic in Sufism, Islam's mystical tradition.

History & Structure

The Mount of Olives is a ridge running north to south east of Jerusalem's Old City, rising to about 800 metres and named for the olive groves that once covered it. Its western slope, facing the city, is densely covered with the pale stone tombs of the Jewish cemetery. The mount holds the Garden of Gethsemane, an olive grove; the Catholic Church of All Nations; the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene; the small teardrop-shaped chapel of Dominus Flevit (Latin for 'the Lord wept'); and the Chapel of the Ascension, which encloses a slab of rock that pilgrims regard as bearing a footprint left by Jesus. After Christianity was legalized in the 4th century, the Mount of Olives became a major Christian pilgrimage site filled with churches, monasteries, and shrines; from the 7th century, after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, it retained religious importance under Islamic rule. In the 20th century, control shifted to Jordan after the 1948 war and then to Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, after which restoration of the damaged Jewish cemetery began, and it is still in use today.

Resources

• Related: The Mount of Olives, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem