The Church of the Holy Sepulcher lies in the heart of the Christian quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. It commemorates both what is believed to be the hill of Golgotha where Jesus was crucified and the sepulcher (grave) in which He was buried and from which He resurrected. Within its walls are the traditional 10^th to 14^th stations of Via Dolorosa (Way of Suffering or Way of Sorrows) following the footsteps of the New Testament and traditional texts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The Church was originally built by order of the Emperor Constantine, in the 4th century CE as an atrium and basilica. It was destroyed in 1009 by the Muslim Fatimid ruler Al Hakim and then rebuilt to its present day structure in the mid-11^th century as a cathedral.

It was the fate of this rebuilt cathedral that was one of the concerns of Pope Urban II when he called forth the Crusades in 1095. In 1099 the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and liberated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was such a central theme, that the first monarch of Jerusalem, Godfrey De Bouilon was not named king but rather "Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Protector of the Holy Sepulcher)." During the entire second Crusade period, the Sepulcher played a central role for both pilgrims and the Crusader government until Salah ad-Din captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1151. 

The Church of the Sepulcher continued to be the headquarters of both the Latin patriarch and the Franciscan's Catholic order, but due to Christianity's many denominations and infighting, the Ottoman government imposed a Status quo law in 1853 leaving the various denominations permanently in their places of duty. This can be seen clearly by a ladder that is on the window of the entrance that was being used when the status quo laws came about and since windows are common area, which has not been removed since. Although many believe that the Garden Tomb, challenges the Sepulchre's historical basis for the crucifixion of Jesus, the Holy Sepulchre makes for a fascinating journey into both the New Testament passion text and the early Christian history.