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Pools of Bethesda and Church of St. Anne

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Pools of Bethesda and Church of St. Anne Review

The transition is sudden and complete, from the raucous cobbled streets and persistent vendors to the pepper trees, flower patches, and birdsong of this serene Catholic cloister. The Romanesque Church of St. Anne was built by the Crusaders in 1140, and restored in the 19th century. Its austere and unadorned stone interior and extraordinarily reverberant acoustics make it one of the finest examples of medieval architecture in the country. According to local tradition, the Virgin Mary was born in the grotto over which the church is built, and the church is named for her mother. In the same compound are the excavated Pools of Bethesda, a large, double public reservoir in use during the 1st century BC and 1st century AD. The New Testament speaks of Jesus miraculously curing a lame man by "a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda" (John 5). The actual bathing pools were the small ones, east of the reservoir, but it was over the big pools that both the Byzantines and the Crusaders built churches, now ruined, to commemorate the miracle. A visit to both sites will take no more than 30 minutes.

    Contact Information

  • Address: Al-Mujahideen Rd., near Lions' Gate, Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem, 97500
  • Phone: 02/628-3285
  • Cost: NIS 7
  • Hours: Apr.--Sept., daily 8--12 and 2--6; Oct.--Mar., daily 8--12 and 2--5
  • Location: Old City
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    A Preview of Heaven...

    The Church of St. Anne's is one of my favorite sites in Jerusalem. I never visit Jerusalem that I don't stop in. On my second visit to Jerusalam, one of the priests at St. Anne's gave me and my friends a personal tour of the church.

    He said that Hebrew University had visited the site and that there were no straight lines anywhere in the church. The entire church is asymmetrical. The number of steps on the left of the altar does not match the number of steps on the right. If one follows the lines of the floor pavement stones, it become apparent that the church is asymmetrical.

    The magnificent point, though, is that the church has perfect acoustics. Even bad voices sound good in St. Anne's.

    That's what Heaven will be like. God's going to take all the voices in the choir and though they are imperfect on this earth, when they are put in a building with perfect acoustics,they will have perfect pitch.

    Remember when you visit St. Anne's--it is an imperfect building with perfect design... just like mankind--imperfect people created in a perfect design.

    And, to add to the visit, there is the wonderful excavated Pool of Bethesda: an archaeological site supported by the biblical text.

    by ruthbaker, 4/9/09

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