See also: Nazareth (homonymy)

Nazareth (in Arabic: rear RTL الناصرة and in Hebrew: נצרת) is a city of the north of Israel, in Galileo. It is more the Arab big city of the country (53 600 inhabitants).

The Évangiles indicate Nazareth like the town of Joseph and Marie, and the place of the youth of Jesus Christ.

In Nazareth, the Basilique of the Annunciation (catholic) is largest of the churches of the the Middle East. She was inaugurated in 1964 by the Pope Paul VI and was devoted in 1969 on the site of churches older, themselves built on a cave identified like that of the Annonciation.

In this respect, it is advisable to recall that in spite of its importance in the life of Christ, the town of Nazareth did not become immediately a place of Christian Pèlerinage. Actually the first holy place was built in the neighborhoods of the 4th century by the mother of the Constantin emperor. She made rename the old agglomeration of In-Nasira in Nazareth because the pilgrims coming from the west did not manage to find a village bearing the name of Nazareth. The city one was formerly évêché.

In the year 570, a first church was thus built there. One found trace of this building thanks to remainders of mosaic S carrying of the inscriptions in Greek. At the time of the conquest of Nazareth by the Cross in 1099, the Christian places of worship are in ruins and the knight Normand Tancrède, Prince de Galilée, orders the construction of a Cathédrale upstream of the cave located at the center of the city. What was thereafter largest building built by the Crusaders was damaged by the earthquake of 1102.

The protection of the places was entrusted to the Ordre of the Temple during XIIe and XIIIe centuries. If the pilgrims had the possibility of going in these places lasting of long years, the fall of Saint-Jean-in Acre (Akko) put an end to these visits. It been necessary to await the year 1620 and the return of the catholic clergy for Nazareth so that the Christian world can again fully benefit from the site. In 1730, the order of the Franciscains obtained Othoman Sultan a Firman in order to build a new place of worship, which will survive until in 1955. On this date, it will be destroyed to allow the construction of this basilica.

Work was entrusted to the Architecte Giovanni Muzio which built a unit on two levels. The first containing the cave and the second, a central nave inspired of the plans of the cross cathedral of the 12th century. Today, Nazareth is one of the Christian sanctuaries most important of the the Middle East and the sphere in general. Beside this basilica is the Saint-Joseph church, on the site supposed of the house of the Holy Family and the workshop of carpentry of Joseph. Not far from there, a church (Greek-catholic) would correspond to the Synagog where the Holy Family went and where the Christ started to preach, causing the rejection of crowd (" No one is not prophet in his country ").

The church of fear (of the time of the Cross : " Sault of the Lord ") commemorate the place from where the crowd of Nazareth wanted to precipitate the Christ in order to kill it. The " well of Marie " is one of the public monuments of Nazareth. Its source is sheltered by a orthodoxe church.

Internal bond

• Praise of the new militia (Order of the Temple) by Holy Bernard, 1129, chapter VII, Nazareth.