Church of All Nations

The Church of All Nations in Jerusalem's Garden of Gethsemane guides you through a 2009 DNA study of the eight ancient olive trees outside its walls, all found to be siblings grown from cuttings of a single parent tree planted around the Crusader era. It turns to the Gospel account of the anguished night Jesus is said to have prayed here before his arrest, and to architect Antonio Barluzzi, who in the 1920s glazed the windows in violet alabaster and painted the domes midnight blue to recreate that darkness. At the center, behind an iron crown of thorns, lies the bedrock slab venerated as the site of the prayer.