Monastery of the Cross 3.61

The Monastery of the Cross is an Eastern Orthodox monastery near the Nayot neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. It is located in the Valley of the Cross, below the Israel Museum and the Knesset.HistoryThe monastery was built in the eleventh century, during the reign of King Bagrat IV by the Georgian Giorgi-Prokhore of Shavsheti. It is believed that the site was originally consecrated in the fourth century under the instruction of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who later gave the site to king Mirian III of Kartli after the conversion of his kingdom to Christianity in 327 AD.Legend has it that the monastery was erected on the burial spot of Adam's head—though two other locations in Jerusalem also claim this honor—from which grew the tree that gave its wood to the cross on which Christ was crucified.Due to heavy debt the monastery was sold by the Georgians to the Greeks in 1685. It is currently occupied by monks of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.