Deepertruth: Jesus Laid in the Tomb

Pilgrims began making Jerusalem a place of pilgrimage when the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 gave the Church freedom with his "Edict of Milan".

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built over the traditionally held belief where Christ was crucified and placed in the tomb. There is an old parchment written in the fourth century coming from a French woman named Egeria who made such a pilgrimage.

Led by the Bishop of Jerusalem, pilgrims gathered at the "first cockcrow" at the place where Jesus began His agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Egeria writes, "reaching the (city) gate about the time when one man begins to recognize another, and thence right on through the midst of the city. All, to a man, both great and small, rich and poor, all are ready there, for on that special day not a soul withdraws from the vigils until morning."

In time, the route known as the Via Dolorosa, the Sorrowful way, began where Pontius Pilate made his judgement heading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher going through old Jerusalem.