Church of the Pater Noster (Mount of Olives)
On the Mount of Olives, associated with Jesus teaching the Lord's Prayer.
Plan a trip hereThe Story
The Church of the Pater Noster stands on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, at a site where Christian tradition remembers Jesus teaching His disciples — a tradition associated above all with the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father (Luke 11:1–4; Matthew 6:9–13). The sanctuary rises over a cave that early Christians venerated as a place where Christ instructed His followers. In the fourth century the Emperor Constantine, at the urging of his mother St. Helena, built a great basilica here known as the Eleona ("of the olive grove"), one of the first churches of the Holy Land. It was destroyed by the Persians in 614; Crusader chapels later rose and fell on the spot, and the association with the teaching of the Our Father became firmly attached to the site in the medieval period. The modern sanctuary owes its existence to the Princess Aurelia de la Tour d'Auvergne, who acquired the land in the nineteenth century, established a Carmelite monastery here in the 1870s, and began the tradition for which the site is famous: the walls of its cloister and church are lined with ceramic panels bearing the Lord's Prayer in well over one hundred languages. Excavations in the early twentieth century uncovered the foundations of the Constantinian basilica, part of which has been reconstructed. For pilgrims, the Pater Noster is a place to pray the prayer Jesus Himself taught, in one's own tongue, alongside the tongues of the whole world — a vivid image of the universal Church united in the words of her Lord.
Church Recognition
The Pater Noster sanctuary continues the ancient Eleona basilica built under Constantine in the fourth century; it is a recognized Holy Land shrine in Catholic care, served by a cloistered Carmelite community.
Catholic Teaching
The site draws pilgrims into the Lord's Prayer, which the Catechism calls "the summary of the whole Gospel" (CCC 2761–2776); praying the Our Father where tradition locates Christ's teaching unites the pilgrim with the universal Church, which prays these words in every language.
Plan Your Visit
Practical
Additional Information
The cloister displays the Our Father in many languages.
Go Deeper
Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church's rich commentary on the Our Father (CCC 2759–2865), the Gospel accounts in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, and Holy Land guides such as Murphy-O'Connor's The Holy Land; the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land's resources describe the Mount of Olives shrines in detail.
Location
See it on the interactive map →Pilgrim Photos
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In the Area
Other sacred sites within 40 miles.