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The Church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, Israel, honors the visit paid by the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. () This is the site where tradition tells us that Mary recited her song of praise, the Magnificat, one of the most ancient Marian hymns.〔''The History and Use of Hymns and Hymn-Tunes'' by David R Breed 2009 ISBN 1-110-47186-6 page 17〕 . ==History== One tradition attributes the construction of the first church of Ein Karem to Empress Helena of Constantinople, Constantine I's mother, who identified the site as the home of John's father, Zachary and the place where Elizabeth and her infant son hid from Herod's soldiers. Possibly due to the Muslim takeover of Jerusalem in 638, the original shrine must have gone out of reach for Christian pilgrims and by the time the Crusaders conquered the Holy Land, they found in Ein Karem two different locations venerated in connection with the main points of interest for pilgrims: the meeting between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, the home of Zachary and Elizabeth, the birth of John, and the hiding place of Elizabeth and John. They erected two main churches here, the precursors of what are today the Church of St John the Baptist and the Church of the Visitation. After the departure of the Crusaders, the different traditions shifted back and forth between the two locations. At the site of the Church of the Visitation the Crusaders erected a two-story church dedicated to the meeting between Elizabeth and Mary over the ancient ruins they found here. When the Crusaders were pushed out of the Holy Land, the church gradually deteriorated. In the 14th century it was for a while under the care of Armenian monks, but in 1480 a pilgrim reports only ruins from the site. The Franciscans bought the property from an Arab family in 1679, excavated the grounds in 1937 and erected a new church in the following years, preserving all extant Byzantine and Crusader remains as part of the new shrine. Archaeologists found a Byzantine cistern in the courtyard and, more significantly, the remains of a Byzantine chapel over which the later churches were erected. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Church of the Visitation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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