Jerusalem - Church of the Pater Noster



In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6.9-13 NKJV)

The Church of the Pater Noster is a partially reconstructed Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. It stands on the traditional site of Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer. It is a curious place to commemorate the teaching on the Lord’s Prayer in that Matthew’s gospel has the prayer as part of the Sermon on the Mount, on the Mount of Beatitudes at the northwest shore of the Galilee, some eighty miles away. 

Regardless, in 614 AD, the Persians destroyed the 4th century church built by Constantine’s mother, Helena. A convent controlled by the Carmelite Cloistered Sisters in located on the ruins of that ancient Basilica. The main thing to see here is just outside the south door. On a paved walkway, there are tile panels displaying the Lord’s Prayer in sixty-two languages.

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