Christian Articles & Holy Land Guides

Few chapters of Christian history carry as much weight—or as much myth—as the Crusades. This guide follows two centuries of conflict in the Holy Land, from Urban II's call in 1095 and the capture of Jerusalem to Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, the sack of Constantinople, Frederick II's negotiated recovery of Jerusalem, and the fall of Acre in 1291.

Eastern Orthodoxy is one of Christianity's oldest living traditions, shaped by the early Church, the ecumenical councils, ancient liturgy, monasticism, and a distinctive understanding of Christian spiritual life. This guide explores what Eastern Orthodox Christians believe, why icons and the Divine Liturgy are so important, how the Orthodox Church is organized, and why Jerusalem and the Holy Land remain central to a tradition whose roots reach back to Christianity's earliest communities.

The Great Schism was not a single break in 1054. Discover how politics, the Filioque, papal authority and 1204 gradually divided Eastern and Western Christianity.
Navigation tag: Christian Faith & Tradition

Constantine and Helena laid the first stones. Over the next three centuries, emperors, monks, and pilgrims transformed Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Galilee into a Christian landscape whose legacy still survives today.

The Council of Nicaea did not choose the books of the Bible. In AD 325, bishops gathered to confront a dispute over Christ's divinity, producing the Nicene Creed and decisions that would shape Christianity for centuries.

Constantine changed Christianity's place in the Roman Empire, while Saint Helena's Holy Land journey helped reshape Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Discover the history behind the churches, pilgrimage sites, and True Cross tradition that followed.

Christianity began in Jerusalem, but within a generation Christian communities existed from Syria to Rome. Follow the roads, ports, cities, synagogues, households, and ordinary travelers that carried the early Christian message across the Roman world.

Christianity did not begin in Rome or medieval Europe. It began among Jewish followers of Jesus in first-century Jerusalem. This guide traces the earliest Church from the Resurrection and Pentecost through the first Christian communities, the mission to Gentiles, persecution, and the faith's expansion across the Roman world.

The Twelve Apostles were not one uniform group: several were fishermen, one was a tax collector, and some are known to us only by a name in the Gospel lists. This guide follows what Scripture actually says about the Twelve, why Jesus chose that number, what later tradition says about their fates, and why Christians still disagree about how apostolic authority continues in the Church.

He never says a single word in the New Testament, yet Joseph of Nazareth is entrusted with raising and protecting Jesus. Scripture remembers him through his actions: a righteous man whose quiet obedience repeatedly shaped the story of the Holy Family. This guide follows his biblical life, his 1870 proclamation as Patron of the Universal Church, and how Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions understand him today.

The Virgin Mary stands at the center of the Gospel's account of the Incarnation and holds a unique place across Christian history. This guide follows Mary from Nazareth and Scripture through the title Theotokos, Catholic Marian dogmas, Orthodox devotion, and Protestant approaches to the mother of Jesus.

Saint George was venerated as a martyr centuries before the dragon entered his story. This guide separates the early evidence from later legend and follows his cult back to ancient Lydda, modern Lod in the Holy Land.