Church of St Anne

The Church of St Anne stands on Sitt Maryam Street in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, near Lions' Gate. It was built by the Crusaders in about 1131-1138 on the site traditionally identified as the home of Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Virgin Mary. The church is a plain Romanesque building of three aisles with pointed arches and a ribbed vault, and its simple, undecorated limestone walls are known for excellent acoustics, so choirs often stop to sing. After Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187, the church was converted into a Muslim religious school, and an Arabic inscription over the door records this. In the 19th century the Ottoman government presented the building to France following the Crimean War, and it has been under the care of the White Fathers, the Missionaries of Africa, who restored it in the 1860s and later. A crypt below the nave is venerated as the grotto of the Virgin's birth. Immediately beside the church are the excavated Pools of Bethesda, two large rock-cut reservoirs of the Second Temple period, which were later covered by Byzantine and Crusader churches. Visitors can walk around the remains of the pools and see sections of the foundations of a Byzantine basilica. The site also includes a garden and the remains of a Roman temple to Asclepius, which some scholars associate with healing traditions. The church is a working Catholic site, and visitors are asked to dress modestly and keep quiet. The compound is entered from the street through a gate and is normally closed at midday. Signage is provided in several languages, and the complex is compact, taking under an hour for most visitors.