In 1881, a group of nuns from the Sisters of Nazareth, a congregation founded in Lyon a few decades earlier, arrived in Nazareth to establish their first convent in the Holy Land. They purchased a plot of land directly across from the Basilica of the Annunciation
While digging to lay the foundations for their house, they came across a series of underground rooms. Nothing out of the ordinary in Nazareth! Every ancient house has a cistern or storeroom beneath it. However, in the case of the Sisters of Nazareth convent, the discoveries were spectacular.
Descending a staircase, on its right wall, one can see the rim of an ancient well or cistern. The ropes used to hoist jars left their marks on the marble. The Sisters of the convent maintain that this is an ancient spring that became blocked over time, and they connect it to a 7th-century description of Nazareth. Arculf, a Gallic pilgrim, wrote that Nazareth had two springs. We know of the “Fountain of Mary,” located east of the Basilica of the Annunciation, but Arculf refers to another spring, very close to the “House of Mary” (Basilica of the Annunciation) and another church called “of the Nutrition,” built over Joseph’s house, where Jesus was “nurtured”—that is, where “[He] grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” as Saint Luke tells us (Lk 2:40). Today, the Franciscans uphold this tradition in the Church of Saint Joseph, erected a short distance from the Basilica of the Annunciation. The Sisters of Nazareth convent is at the same distance from the House of Mary, but Arculf’s description seems to favor the location of the Holy Family’s house at the Sisters of Nazareth convent. On the one hand, no spring ever existed beneath the Franciscan Church of Saint Joseph. On the other hand, the archaeological remains found at the Sisters of Nazareth convent have no equivalent in the Franciscan Church of Saint Joseph.
Past the well’s rim, an ancient arch opens into a room where not only the remains of a chapel were found but also a tomb in which, according to the Sisters, a skeleton was buried in a seated position. A bishop, perhaps?
Even more striking, an adjacent room contained the remains of two monumental staircases. These were built during the Crusader period (12th century) and connected the nave of a destroyed church—possibly the “Church of the Nutrition”? — to a crypt. Between the two staircases, the threshold of a rock-hewn door led, according to the Sisters, to a 1st-century house: could this be the Holy Family’s house where Jesus spent his childhood?
The most spectacular find, however, lies even deeper. Through a hole in the crypt’s pavement, another underground space can be glimpsed: a burial chamber with kochim-type tombs (oven-like niches), typical of Jesus’ era. The presence of a round stone used to seal the entrance to this chamber stands out—the same system as that of Jesus’ tomb in the Holy Sepulcher. Without a doubt, we are standing before an aristocratic tomb.
The Sisters of Nazareth recount that, when they purchased this property, a rumor circulated in Nazareth claiming that the “Tomb of the Righteous One” was located there. And who is the Righteous One in Nazareth if not Saint Joseph? One explanation is that the inhabitants of Nazareth wished to honor Jesus’ father by burying him in a royal tomb. Over this tomb, the Byzantines, and later the Crusaders, built a commemorative church dedicated to the Hidden Life of Jesus.
By Henri Gourinard
