Tomb of Mary, Valley of Cedron, Jerusalem

The Tomb of Mary is one of the oldest documented Marian shrines in the world, with archaeological evidence confirming a 1st-century cemetery and literary tradition placing Mary's burial here from at least the 2nd-4th centuries. The subterranean church is governed by the Status Quo, the complex legal arrangement that regulates Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

According to Sacred Tradition, when the time of Mary's death approached, the Apostles were miraculously transported from their missions around the world to be present at her bedside in Jerusalem. Mary died a natural death — the Dormition, the 'falling asleep' — and her soul was received by Christ. The Apostles carried her body in procession to this tomb in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

Three days later, the Apostle Thomas — who had arrived too late for the burial — asked that the tomb be opened so he could see Mary one last time. When the stone was rolled away, the body was gone. Only her burial cloths remained, along with a sweet fragrance. The Apostles understood that she had been assumed bodily into heaven.

This narrative appears in apocryphal texts dating from the 2nd to the 7th century and was well established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, when Bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem testified to the tomb's authenticity. A competing tradition places Mary's death in Ephesus, but the Jerusalem tradition has stronger and older historical support.