Image Description from historic lecture booklet: "The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was erected by Constantine about 336 A.D. It is built over the supposed Holy Sepulchre. It has no architectural beauty at present, if it ever had any, for it has been repeatedly destroyed and restored. The church is a very interesting site in Jerusalem to the Christian, because for more than sixteen hundred years it has been accepted as genuine for Mt. Calvary. It is so considered yet except by a few scholars who maintain that this church could not be the true site and point to the Calvary and the Garden Tomb outside the Damascus Gate."
Constantine built a church here in 330, most of which survives in the present church of Nativity. Justinian who reigned from 527 to 565, rebuilt the walls of the town. The first care of the Crusaders, before taking Jerusalem in 1099, was to secure the safety of the Christian population of Bethlehem. Today there are about 8,000 inhabitants with Armenian Greek, and Latin churches, monasteries, convents, and schools for girls and for boys. There are English and German missions.
