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Gethsemane Church

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Gethsemane Church

Gethsemane Church: The Church of All Nations, also known as the Church or Basilica of the Agony, is a Roman Catholic Church located on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, next to the Garden of Gethsemane. It enshrines a section of bedrock where Jesus is said to have prayed before his arrest. (Mark 14:32–42)

The current church rests on the foundations of two earlier ones that of a 4th-century Byzantine basilica, destroyed by an earthquake in 746, and of a small 12th-century Crusader chapel abandoned in 1345. In 1920, during work on the foundations, a column was found two meters beneath the floor of the medieval crusader chapel. Fragments of a magnificent mosaic were also found. Following this discovery, the architect immediately removed the new foundations and began excavations of the earlier church. After the remains of the Byzantine-era church were fully excavated, plans for the new church were altered and work continued on the current basilica from April 19, 1922 until June 1924 when it was consecrated.