[1] The Bible does not give a precise location for the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, stating only that Mary went to "a town in the hill country of Judea" (Luke 1:39).

One tradition attributes the construction of the first church of Ein Karem to Empress Helena of Constantinople, Constantine I's mother, who identified the site as the home of John's father, Zechariah.

Design and construction of the upper level of the structure began in 1938, and was completed by Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi in 1955.

[6] The courtyard contains a statue of Mary and Elizabeth, and on the wall opposite the entrance to the lower church are forty-two ceramic tablets bearing the verses of the Magnificat in as many different languages.

The lower church contains a narrow medieval barrel-vaulted crypt ending with a well-head from which, according to tradition, Elizabeth and her infant drank.

[citation needed] The interior of the lower church holds Italianate frescoes depicting Zachary at the altar of the Lord, the Visitation, and Elizabeth hiding her son during the Massacre of the Innocents.

Those on the southern wall are depicting five episodes, from left (east) to right (west): Behind the altar, a fresco is showing Mary approaching through Judaea, with the Franciscan custos presenting her the model of the church and the Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem of the time in attendance.