Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem

St Mark's Monastery's richly ornamented 12th century church in Jerusalem is traditionally believed to occupy the site of the house belonging to Mary, mother of Mark the Evangelist, where Peter took refuge after escaping from the prison in which he had been confined by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12,12-17). Just inside the church, to the right, is an inscription in Aramaic, and in the nave are a silver- mounted font and above this an icon of the Virgin which the monks ascribe to Luke the Evangelist (who is believed in the Eastern church to have painted the earliest, and therefore the authentic, icon of the Mother of God). There is also a richly carved patriarchal throne.

From Armenian Patriarchate Street in Jeruslaem and continuing south, we come to the Monastery of the Armenian Patriarchate (on left), the largest monastic house in Jerusalem and the spiritual center of the Armenians, of whom there are several thousand in the city.

St James's Cathedral in Jerusalem dates from the time of the Crusades (12th century). The porch on the south side has a fine doorway of that period. The church has associations with two St Jameses. A chapel to the left of the entrance is believed to mark the spot where St James the Great, son of Zebedee, was beheaded in A.D. 44 on the orders of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12,2). According to the traditional account his body was transported by his disciples to Spain, where it later became the center of the cult of St James (Santiago) in the city which bears his name, Santiago de Compostela. Below the high altar is the tomb of the other St James, the Lord's Brother and the first bishop of Jerusalem, who was stoned to death in 62. On the south side of the cathedral is a doorway leading into the Etchmiadzin Chapel, in which stones from Sinai and Mount Tabor are preserved.

Near the south end of Armenian Patriarchate Street in Jeruslaem, approached by a flight of steps, is the Museum of Armenian Art and History, with a collection of documents on the history of the Armenian people, cult objects and works of art (including the of the last Armenian king, dating from the 14th century, liturgical vestments, crowns, etc.). The museum also possesses some 4,000 illuminated manuscripts of the 10th-17th centuries.

Past the Gulbenkian Library in Jerusalem, through an arched gateway and turning right, we come to a chapel (1300) on the site of the house of Annas, father-in-law of the high priest Caiaphas, and the Convent of the Olive-Tree (Deir ez-Zeituni), where visitors are shown an olive-tree to which Christ is said to have been tied before appearing before the high priest.