Monastery of the Cross — Attraction in Jerusalem

A Greek-Orthodox monastery, built as a fortress, located in the Rehaviah valley (Cross valley). According to tradition it is the site of the tree that was used to build the cross of the crucifixion.    The monastery was initially built in the Byzantine period, during the  5th C AD. It was repaired by Caesar Justinian in the mid 6th C.  The Monastery was destroyed during the Persian invasion (614AD). In 796 the Arabs butchered all the residing monks. It was rebuilt in the 11th C by a Georgian Monk, and enjoyed better times during the times of the Crusaders. The site was a large center in the 13-14th C, and hosted a hundreds of Georgian monks, scholars and poets. At the end of the 17th C the Monastery changed control from the Georgians to the Greek-Orthodox church. The number of residents has decreased over the years to a few. The Monastery is open to the public and is kept by a few resident monks. It is a popular visiting site for the Christian pilgrims who...

According to the story, in the 4th century, on the advice of St. Nino, the first Christian king of Georgia, Mirian ( 261 - 342), who arrived here, bought the territory of the monastery and built a chapel there. In the second half of the 5th century, the King of Kartli (449-502) Vakhtang Gorgasali entered Jerusalem with his army (accompanied by his mother and sister). He enlarged and embellished the chapel and left 600 soldiers to guard it. We not have any information about the monastery in the following centuries. The monastery complex that has survived to this day on the site of the old chapel was built in the 11th century by the monk Georgy Prokhor with the support of King Bagrat IV Kurapalat and his mother Mariam, and with the blessing of Eqvtime...

The Monastery of the Cross (Georgian: ჯვრის მონასტერი) is an Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem, Israel. It is located in the Valley of the Cross. The monastery was built in the 11th century, during the reign of King Bagrat IV by the Georgian Giorgi-Prokhore of Shavsheti. It is believed that the site was originally consecrated in the 4th century under the instruction of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who later gave the site to the Georgian King Mirian III of Iberia after the conversion of his country to Christianity in 327 A.D. By the 14th century, the monastery had become the center of the Georgian community in Jerusalem. By 1685, however, the monastery had been taken over by the Greek Orthodox...