The market bordered from the east with Muristan Street, from the west with the Christian Road, from the north with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and from the south with David Street. This area used to be the Roman Forum, a big courtyard that served as an urban market. The compound continues to this day to serve, in addition to other uses, commercial activities, thereby retaining continuity of use. During the crusader era, this place used to be the abode of the knights’ order named after John the Baptist (Saint John), or known as the “Hospitaller” order. The Hospitallers established in this area two churches (Santa Maria Grande and Santa Maria Latina), and a large and advanced hospital for the benefit of the Christian pilgrims.
The origin of the name “Muristan” is an erroneous pronunciation of the word “Bimristan”, which means hospital in a Persian-Turkish dialect. Following the occupation of Jerusalem by Salah A-Din, his soldiers arrived at Jerusalem. Salah A-Din was a promising and successful army officer of Kurdish origins, who defeated the crusaders army. That’s when the area became known as “Bimaristan”, named after the crusader hospital located there. The name was erroneously converted to Arabic over the following years, and it remains till this day “Muristan”.
This area was deserted again over the following years, and remnants of buildings and garbage piles accumulated in it. Only in the end of the 19th century did a new awakening begin in this wide compound. The Germans began their construction in the area, building the Lutheran Church of Redemption with its pointy tower, where the crusader church “Santa Maria Latina” used to be located. Remnants of the crusader church were integrated into the current structure. The church was inaugurated in 1898 in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm the 2nd and his wife Augusta Victoria. Later on the Germans built additional buildings in the Muristan area: a school for boys and a center for the Lutheran church. On the 1st floor of the building which serves the Lutheran community and its leaders, they used the crusader cloister (a courtyard surrounded by arches), built by the order of the Knights of Saint John.
The remaining plot was later sold on to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which established a tourist oriented market that replaced what used to be the crusader church “Santa Maria Grande”. The market was inaugurated in 1903. The entrepreneur of the project was Archimandrite Avtimus, and the Bazaar is named after him to this day. At the center of the market there is a magnificent water fountain, which was built in honor of 25 years of the rule of the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid the 2nd.
The fountain has recently been renovated, after decades of not operating, and next to it one can see two water troughs, which provided water to visitors in this area. On the water fountain at the center of the market there is an engraved sign- a T with a circle at its center- these are the Greek letters “Tau” and “Phi”, the initials of the word “Taphos”, meaning grave. The “Taphos” is the symbol of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, which owns a large part of the property in the compound of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
