Other sites of possible interest in this area include the ancient cities of Ramle and Lod. Both were Holy Land centers during Crusader times and the latter was where Aeneas was healed by Simon Peter during a visit to the area (Acts 9:32-35). EIN KAREM
months following the visitation by the angel Gabriel in which he announced the future birth of Jesus. “Elizabeth spoke out with a loud voice and said: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me” (Luke 1:42). A stone against one wall bears the imprint of a young boy’s body. A tradition relates that the infant John left this imprint here when Elizabeth hid him from Herod’s soldiers at the time of the Slaughter of the Innocents.
The Church of St. John the Baptist in Ein Karem belongs to the Franciscan monastery of the same name. The first church rose here in the fifth century, on the spot traditionally held to be the home of Zacharias and Elizabeth. A marble star beneath the altar bears a Latin inscription: “Hic Precursor Domini Natus Est” (“Here, the precursor of the Lord was born”).
Another find was disclosed, which identifies John the Baptist with this area of Israel and authenticates, perhaps, the tradition of his having
Adjacent to Jerusalem - in fact, a part of Israel’s capital city nowadays - the pastoral Ein Karem suburb, has long been associated with Elizabeth and Zacharias, the parents of John the Baptist, and is renowned as being his birthplace. In addition, Ein Karem was visited by Mary during her pregnancy. It contains two churches, one of which commemorates John’s birth and the other the Visitation. Inscribed in the churches is text of the Benedictus (Zacharias’ song in Luke 1:68-79) and the Magnificat (Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55) respectively, both in many different languages. In the opposite direction, seven and a half miles from Jerusalem, lies Emmaus, where the resurrected Jesus met the two travelers (Luke 24, 13-35). Ein Karem’s original Church of the Visitation, also known as the Church of the Magnificat, was constructed in the fourth century by the Empress Helena on the site where, tradition holds, Mary felt Jesus stirring in her for the first time. Later, the Crusaders identified the site as the place where the meeting between Elizabeth and Mary took place, and they erected a two-story church on the ruins of the ancient house of worship. Mary visited Ein Karem on the way to Bethlehem during her pregnancy, met her kinswoman Elizabeth and stayed with her for three
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