The Armenian Quarter

The Armenian Quarter occupies the southwest corner of the Old City. It covers one-sixth of the area contained inside the ancient walls. It is believed that between 35 and 25 B.C., the Jewish King, Herod built a fortress and his palace along the western wall of the Quarter which at that time was called The Upper City ( Zion) since it was ( and now is ) relatively on higher ground than the other Quarters. After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the area was occupied by the Tenth Roman ( Fretensis) Legion and became a government center. In the beginning of the twentieth century this western-most section of the Quarter was used as a cow pasture and to this day it is called as such.

Some Christian historians believed the site of the Armenian Quarter is also the Biblical Mount Zion, a name currently used for the area- a parcel of land highly coveted by other nations and religions. A short time after the destruction of Jerusalem, a small number of Jewish Christians returned to the few houses that remained standing in the Upper City. (At the time almost all Christians were of Jewish origin). Since Christians were not legally recognized at the time, they were driven out by future Roman emperors. There is no historical evidence that Christians lived in the Upper City during the second and third centuries; instead, they congregated outside the city.

One of the gates of the Old City along the southern end of the Armenian Quarter is currently called Zion Gate. It opens to a street outside the wall, currently called Hativat Ezyioni (Zion Street). This street runs between the southern wall of the city and the Armenian cemetery adjacent to St. Savior Armenian Convent and the Biblical House of Caiaphas . Over the last three centuries this large cemetery has been the burial place of many distinguished Patriarchs of Jerusalem as well as the resting place of members of the community and many pilgrims who met their reward while visiting the Holy Places. The inscriptions on the old tombstones tell many poignant stories of the nature of the people interred there. The centerpiece of the cemetery is a monument erected in memory of the fallen heros of the Armenian Legion in 1917. It also serves as a reminder of the Armenian victims of the Turkish genocide in 1915.

The Armenian Quarter is a complex of several historical sites around which Armenians congregated over the last mi