This is the first comprehensive guide book written about Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, based on the latest scholarly research, yet designed for a popular audience. Jerusalem's legendary photographer Garo Nalbandian provides color photographs of every section of the church complex, its mosaics and painted columns, artifacts from different eras, and glimpses of sites not usually available for public viewing. The church, one of three built under the direction of the emperor Constantine and his mother Helena, is recognized for its commemoration of Jesus' birth, and, as one of the oldest in the world, provides a microcosm of the whole of Christian history continuing today with the living stones, the local worshiping Palestinian Christian community.