Today I visited the birthplace of John the Baptist as part of my journey to Israel.
The Franciscan monastery at Ein Karem – a village now swallowed up by Jerusalem – is a nineteenth century construction sitting on top of an earlier Byzantine church destroyed during a huge revolt by the Samaritans in Israel during the fifth century.
This is a revolt I knew little about before my current visit to Israel but the destructive wave it unleashed is becoming ever clearer – worth a blog post in the future I think!
Anyway – here is the church and the spot at which John the Baptist – dear to the Templars – was conceived.
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