Monastery Saint Claire (Nazareth)

[11][12] In local folklore related to the story, the mob was said to have returned to Nazareth from the mountain and passed near the terrified Mary, who was miraculously sheltered from their view by a rock which took her shape.

The Visitation of Elizabeth by Mary is usually associated with locations closer to Jerusalem such as Ein Karem and Hebron but were sometimes placed on this same hill during the Middle Ages.

[15] The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was reestablished in 1847, and French involvement in support of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War in the 1850s further improved relations.

[3] St Charles de Foucauld worked at the convent from 1897,[18] living in a small wooden lean-to separate from the nuns' dormitory and previously used only for spare lumber storage.

[10] Hearing of "a servant who dressed like a tramp, spoke and wrote as a man of learning, and prayed like a saint", Elizabeth of Calvary—now the abbess of the Jerusalem convent[7]—had him visit in 1888 and thereafter he divided his time between the two communities before returning to France in 1900.

[21] At the outbreak of World War I, the French nuns of the convent were deported from the Ottoman Empire, the two countries being parts of opposing alliances.

It was not reestablished at its former ruined location[23] on the main road to Haifa, however, but on the monastery grounds about a third of a kilometer (1⁄5 mile) further south at the foot of Tremor Hill.

[21] The Poor Clares of Nazareth now speak French and Spanish to one another, English to visitors, Arabic to neighbors, Hebrew for government purposes, and Italian for their daily services with the town's Franciscan brothers[21] at the nearby Church of the Annunciation supposedly built on the site of Mary's former home.

[24] The nuns are chiefly concerned with prayer and religious life but also play volleyball, make olive rosaries, and dry local flowers for inclusion in cards sold to pilgrims.