Mary's Tomb is a tomb located in the Kidron Valley, on the foothills of Mount of Olives, near the Church of All Nations and Gethsemane garden, originally just outside Jerusalem. It is attributed to Theotokos (Mary, the mother of Jesus) by Eastern Christians.
Preceded by a walled courtyard to the south, the cruciform church shielding the tomb has been excavated in an underground rock-cut cave entered by a wide descending stair dating from the 12th century. On the left side of the staircase (towards the west) there is the chapel of Saint Joseph, Mary's husband, while on the right (towards the east) there is the chapel of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, holding also the tomb of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem.
On the eastern side of the church there is the chapel of Mary's tomb. Altars of the Greeks and Armenians also share the east apse. A niche south of the tomb is a mihrab indicating the direction of Mecca, installed when Muslims had joint rights to the church. On the western side there is a Coptic altar.
The Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem is in possession of the shrine, sharing it with the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Syriacs, the Copts, and the Abyssinians have minor rights. Muslims have a special place for praying (the mihrab).
The tomb was kept in its original state by the local Christians. It was later isolated from the rest of the necropolis. An edicule was built on the tomb.
A small upper church on an octagonal footing was built by Patriarch Juvenal (during Marcian's rule) over the location in the fifth century, and was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 614. During the following centuries the church was destroyed and rebuilt many times, but the crypt was left untouched, as for the Muslims it is the burial place of the mother of prophet Isa. It was rebuilt then in 1130 by the Crusaders, who installed a walled Benedictine monastery, the Abbey of St. Mary of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The monastic complex included early Gothic columns, red-on-green frescoes, and three towers for protection. The staircase and entrance were also part of the Crusaders' church. This church was destroyed by Saladin in 1187, but the crypt was still respected; all that was left was the south entrance and staircase, the masonry of the upper church being used to build the walls of Jerusalem. In the second half of the 14th century Franciscan monks rebuilt the church once more. Since 1757, after bribery and machinations by the Greek Orthodox Church, the Franciscans were dispossessed and the church handed over to the Eastern Orthodox Church. In protest, the Catholic Church does not regularly worship here.
Archaeological diggings after the 1972 flooding revealed a first-century cemetery; its initial structure, consisting of three chambers (the actual tomb being the inner chamber of the whole complex), was adjudged in accordance with the customs of that period.
New Testament accounts and the early apocrypha provide no information about the end of Mary's life or the place of her burial.
Eastern Christian traditions teach that Virgin Mary died a natural death (the Dormition of the Virgin, the falling asleep) like any human being; that her soul was received by Christ upon death; and that her body was resurrected on the third day after her repose, at which time she was taken up, soul and body, into heaven in anticipation of the general resurrection. Her tomb, it was told, was found empty on the third day. By contrast, Roman Catholic teaching holds that Mary was "assumed" into heaven in bodily form, the Assumption; the question of whether or not Mary actually underwent death remains open in the Catholic view, however most theologians believe that she did undergo death before her Assumption.
According to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which acknowledges that Virgin Mary lived in the vicinity of Ephesus in a place currently known as the House of the Virgin Mary and venerated by Christians and Muslims, she only stayed there for few years. It bases its teaching on the writings of Holy Fathers.
The Breviarius of Jerusalem, a short text written in about AD 395, mentions in that valley "the basilica of Holy Mary, which contains her sepulchre". A narrative known as the Euthymiaca Historia (written probably by Cyril of Scythopolis in the fifth century) relates how the Emperor Marcian and his wife, Pulcheria, requested Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, while he was attending the Council of Chalcedon (451), the relics of Virgin Mary. According to the account, Juvenal replied that, on the third day after her burial, Mary's tomb was discovered to be empty, only the shroud being preserved in the church of Gethsemane.
Later, Epiphanius of Salamis, Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Saint Modest, Sophronius of Jerusalem, German of Constantinople, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus talk about the tomb being in Jerusalem, and bear witness that this tradition was accepted by all the Churches of East and West.
Also, the apocryphal works of the second to the fourth century are favorable to the Jerusalem tradition.