Traditional Site
Chapel of the Ascension
CHAP-el of the uh-SEN-shun · Modern At-Tur, Mount of Olives, East Jerusalem · 31.7789° N, 35.2450° E
This small domed edicule on the summit of the Mount of Olives marks the traditional spot where Jesus ascended to heaven forty days after the Resurrection, witnessed by the apostles as "a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9-12). The tradition, dating to the 4th century, centers on a limestone slab inside the shrine venerated as bearing an impression of Christ's footprint. Uniquely among Jerusalem's holy sites, it is administered by the Islamic Waqf, and Christians of all denominations are granted access, especially to celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.
Archaeology
The first church on this site, called the Imbomon ("on the hill"), was built around 390 CE by the Roman noblewoman Poimenia, replacing an earlier open-air gathering spot described by the pilgrim Egeria in 384 CE. That octagonal Byzantine structure was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt, and later reconstructed by the Crusaders around 1150 into the current small octagonal edicule. After Saladin's conquest in 1187 it was converted into a mosque, adding the stone dome and exterior walls seen today. A 1995 salvage excavation outside the mosque's south wall uncovered a Byzantine-period underground crypt linked to the site, but the precise location of Poimenia's original church remains a matter of scholarly reconstruction, and the "footprint" relic is devotional tradition, not an archaeological find.
On a modern map
Further reading
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