You Can Actually Visit the Place Where Jesus Was Resurrected

Most people spend Easter Sunday in a church pew, at a brunch table, or watching children chase plastic eggs across a lawn. A much smaller group spends it somewhere else entirely: standing inside a nearly 1,700-year-old basilica in Jerusalem, inches from the tomb that Christians believe was empty on the first Easter morning.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Located in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is widely recognized as the holiest site in Christianity. It stands on the ground where, according to the New Testament and nearly two millennia of tradition, Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, prepared for burial, laid in a rock-cut tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.

The church was first consecrated in 335 CE, built on orders from the Roman Emperor Constantine after his mother, Helena, identified the site. The wooden doors at its entrance are among the oldest in existence. The tomb itself sits beneath a small ornate chapel called the Aedicule, which was last fully restored between 2016 and 2017. Six different Christian denominations share custody of the building, an arrangement that has been in place since 1853 and has produced some famously complicated arrangements, including the fact that the keys to the church have been held by a Muslim family since the 12th century as a neutral caretaker.