St. Anne's Church, Jerusalem

St. Anne's Church in Jerusalem's Old City is built over a grotto revered as Mary's birthplace, and this guide traces its strange survival across nine centuries: Crusaders raising it in the 1130s under Queen Melisende, Saladin's 1187 conquest sparing it while other churches fell, and its turn into an Islamic school with his name carved above the door. It follows the building through years of neglect, an 1856 gift to France after the Crimean War, and repeated repair. Listen for how a single hum keeps lingering in the bare stone walls.