Jerusalem's Lost Monastery of the Cross

Long before the current skyline was defined by the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a massive monastery stood on the Mount of Olives that dwarfed them all. This episode explores the Monastery of the Cross, or Deir al-Saltan, which dominated the Jerusalem landscape for over a thousand years. We trace its founding in the seventh century by Byzantine empress Eudocia and its destruction by Persian forces in 614 AD, only to be rebuilt later. The narrative follows the monastery through the Islamic conquests, where it remained a Christian enclave until the Crusaders expanded it into a fortress-like complex. We examine the archaeological evidence left behind after its final demolition in the eighteenth century by the Ottoman governor Abd al-Rahim, revealing how a once-magnificent religious center was erased from the map, leaving only its name attached to the nearby valley. Through letters, travelogues, and recent excavations, we reconstruct the life within these walls, including the monks who guarded the relic of the True Cross fragment housed inside.

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