The Holy Sepulchre, the history between closures and restorations

Until 135 AD it remained exactly where it was. Then the Emperor Hadrian razed Jerusalem to the ground. Since then, much has happened.

Holy Sepulchre: Two thousand years of History

Few places in the world carry with them the weight of as many centuries as the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

Until 135 AD, the site remained almost intact: the tomb excavated in the rock was still recognizable, even though the city was already under Roman rule after the capture of Jerusalem in 70 AD. But it was the Emperor Hadrian who changed everything: he razed Jerusalem to the ground, banned the Jewish presence, and rebuilt it as a Roman colony under the name Aelia Capitolina.

Around the tomb of Jesus, Hadrian had pagan temples erected – primarily to Jupiter and Venus – covering the site to erase its memory. For almost two centuries, the tomb remained hidden under pagan buildings, but Christian tradition continued to point to that spot as the Holy Sepulchre.

The turning point came in 325 AD, when the Emperor Constantine the Great ordered the demolition of the temples and the construction of the first great Christian basilica on the site. The decision was also influenced by the journey to Jerusalem of his mother, Elena, who – according to tradition – identified the place of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus and promoted its development as a space of worship.

Since then, devastated and rebuilt, burned and reborn every time, this church is both the most venerated monument of Christianity and one of the longest-running construction sites in the history of architecture. Understanding the history of the Holy Sepulchre, in fact, means rewinding the tape on two thousand years of history.

The history of the Holy Sepulchre is marked by numerous moments in which its doors were closed; due to violence, technical necessity, or protest. Every closure tells a different piece of history, including the difficult coexistence between peoples, the labor of restoration, and its complex management.

2026: the unprecedented closure

At the end of February 2026, the Israeli authorities closed the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre to the public, citing security reasons linked to the escalation of the regional conflict between Israel and Iran. The decision is part of a broader lockdown that has affected all the main holy sites of the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall.

In the official statement from the Custody of the Holy Land, it reads:

The community of Franciscan friars present at the Holy Sepulchre has never ceased, neither by day nor by night, to carry out the scheduled celebrations, rites, daily processions, and liturgical prayers according to what is established by the Status Quo. Even in these days, although access to the Basilica is prevented for the faithful for security reasons, prayer continues uninterrupted in the Holy Places.

It is an unprecedented closure in recent history: the basilica had gone through centuries of destruction, wars, and crises, always remaining, in some form, accessible to the faithful.

The Holy Sepulchre between destruction and restoration

614: The Persian fire

The first major devastation occurred in 614 when the troops of the Persian King Khosrow II conquered Jerusalem. The city was recaptured by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I in 630, and restoration work began.

1009: The destruction of al-Hakim

One of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Holy Sepulchre occurred in 1009, when the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the basilica (along with all the churches of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria). The walls were torn down, and the Aedicule was demolished to its foundations. However, reconstruction began as early as 1014 – thanks to the initiative of the caliph’s mother – and was completed in 1048 under Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, with funding from the Byzantine Empire.

1099: The Crusaders arrive at the Holy Sepulchre

The siege of Jerusalem was the culminating moment of the First Crusade. Under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond IV of Toulouse, the Crusaders managed to conquer the city and take possession of the sacred sites of the Christian religion. It was a moment of faith and blood combined: the Crusader army poured through the streets of Jerusalem, massacring the population. The victors marched in procession toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as a sign of thanksgiving. Less than a century later, Saladin would put an end to the dream of a Christian Jerusalem.

1187: Saladin and the closure

In 1187, Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, conquered Jerusalem and walled up the side doors of the basilica. It was not a definitive closure, but a measure of control: Christians could still enter, but they had to pay a tax. To ensure that no one entered without paying, Saladin entrusted the keys to two local Muslim families – the Nusseibehs and the Joudehs – who have since passed down this task from generation to generation for over eight hundred years.

The closures of the Aedicule for restoration

The Aedicule, the small mausoleum enclosing the tomb of Christ at the center of the rotunda, has been physically closed to allow for restoration work three times from 1500 to the present.

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The first closure occurred in 1555, when the Franciscan friars intervened by building a new Aedicule. It was on that occasion that, having lifted the alabaster slabs, the friars saw the original stone of the tomb. To protect it from wear and tear, Boniface of Ragusa sealed it under a marble slab, which would remain in place until 2016.

The second closure for restoration was in 1809, after the devastating fire of 1808 that had almost completely destroyed the basilica, causing the collapse of the dome and the destruction of the Aedicule’s external decorations. The interior remained miraculously intact – the marble decorations commissioned by Boniface of Ragusa in 1555 were still there – but the external structure had to be completely rebuilt by the Greek architect Komninos of Mytilene in the Turkish Baroque style.

The third closure took place in 2016, after two hundred years, for restorations entrusted to the University of Athens. On that occasion, for the first time in centuries, the marble slab covering the tomb was moved: beneath it, experts found that second, older slab dating back to the period of Constantine.

2018: The shutdown in protest

In February 2018, the three communities that manage the basilica – Greek Orthodox, Franciscans, and Armenians – decided together to close the doors in protest against a proposal by the Israeli government to tax Church properties in Jerusalem. It was a brief but symbolic closure: for the first time in modern history, the Christian communities acted in unison, suspending access to a sacred site as a sign of resistance.