Lutheran Church of the Redeemer

The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, the Old City's only Protestant church, is also the tallest building in the neighborhood, towering over the Christian Quarter's Muristan area, just around the corner from the Church of the Hoy Sepulcher.

The Church was commissioned by Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and built during the 1880s and 1890s on land he had received as a gift in 1869 from Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In 1898, Wilhelm came to Jerusalem to dedicate the Church, riding into the city on horseback though a pair of ceremonial arches, one the gift of Jerusalem's Jewish community and the other donated by the Ottoman Empire.

Like so many houses of worship in the Old City, the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was constructed over the remains of an earlier church, in this case the Church of St. Mary of the Latins, which, in turn, is said to have been located on the ruins of a 5th-century sanctuary. The 177-step ascent to the bell tower is well worth the exertion, as it offers a fine view of the Old City, the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion.

Another interesting feature of the Church is the sculpture adorning the medieval northern gate, which is a relic of the Benedictine entrance to the Church of St. Mary of the Latins. The sculpture features the signs of the zodiac and is reminiscent of the figures that embellish the facade of the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Photo by: Michael Halpern