Church of Mary Magdalene

The Church of Mary Magdalene (Russian: Церковь Святой Марии Магдалины; Arabic: كنيسة القديسة مريم المجدلية; Hebrew: כנסיית מריה מגדלנה) is an Eastern Orthodox Christian church located on the Mount of Olives, directly across the Kidron Valley and near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem.

[1] The church was built in 1888 by Tsar Alexander III and his brothers to honour their mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.

[1] It was constructed to David Grimm's design in the traditional tented roof style popular in 16th- and 17th-century Russia, and includes seven distinctive, gilded onion domes.

[2] The relics of two martyred saints, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia and her fellow nun Varvara Yakovleva,[3] are displayed in the church.

[4] In the 1930s, Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited the church and asked to be buried near her aunt "Ella", the Grand-Duchess Elizabeth.

View towards the Temple Mount and other Jerusalem landscape.
Entrance to the Church