From Latin, the name of this church translates as “The Lord Wept.” An unusual description, isn't it? You will be even more surprised when you learn that this church was built in the shape of a tear! – something that is a very rare and completely non-canonical phenomenon in church architecture.
It is also interesting that the church altar is oriented not to the east, as is customary in churches, but toward the Temple Mount. This was done deliberately so that during the liturgy parishioners could see what Christ saw about 2000 years ago.
And what was he looking at, you may ask? And we will tell you a very beautiful, but sad story.
This event happened even before Christ entered Jerusalem. In those days, there was a house on this spot belonging to a simple Jewish family that sheltered a traveler for the night. It is believed that in a dream Jesus had a vision of the city engulfed in flames, Solomon's Temple destroyed, and thousands of residents dead. Christ, foreseeing that what he saw could not be avoided, weeps.
Forty years later, hundreds of thousands of Jews also weep. After the brutal suppression of the uprising by the future Roman emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian, almost nothing of Jerusalem truly remains…
