Why was a church built on top the spot Jesus was crucified?

Question

Does anyone know from a historical point of view why someone would built a church on top the spot where Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem? Why not leave it alone so that all future generations could know he was real?

Answer 1

The Historical Answer--

The Emporer Constantine saw a vision in the sky of a cross, along with the words, "In this sign, you will conquer." He led his army to battle the next day under the sign of the cross and did indeed win a victory. Consequently, he made Christianity a legal religion in the Roman Empire and became a nominal Christian.

He sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to find the place where Jesus was crucified and to brink back important relics.
She is supposed to have found the true cross and the spear with which Jesus was pierced while on the cross. These were supposedly buried near the place were He was crucified. Subsequently, she brought these back to Rome. Constantine then commissioned a Church to be built over the rock which was believed to be the location of the crucifixion. There has been a church on the site since that time. The church which is there now is the third structure but each succeeding church has been built over the old one and encased it.

Helena also had a church built in Rome to house the relics. There is an intriguing bit of wood in that church today which many believe to be the board from above the head of Christ when he was on the cross. This board is inscribed with the words, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic. The Latin and Greek are written backwards. Aramaic was written right to left, so if the scribe was Jewish, he would have written the Latin and Greek the same way.

Answer 2

Because Christianity is essentially a death cult--the death of Jesus is the foundation of the entire faith. He had to die for the salvation of humanity. And according to many christian beleivers (Catholics, especially) The place where Jesus died is holy land, and where his blood soaked the earth is sacred. The land where he died is sanctified land, and to build a church there is to invite people to come into the presense of the Divine, reminding those who visit that here blood was shed, a life sacrificed, and an entire race redeemed.

Besides, leaving Calvary Hill empty would not be proof sufficent that Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again, not to atheist skeptics like me. An empty plot of land cannot prove mythological events 2000 years old. It is simply empty land.

Personally, even though I am an unbeleiver, it makes more sense to me that a church sits on holy land rather than it be empty. People need to feel close to the important things in life. And If the idea that someone died in this spot a long time ago is important, then a monument should be erected to commemorate that event. A church is a monument to Jesus's death. It serves the same symbolic function as the Vietnam memorial does the deaths of Vietnam vets, or the Lincoln Monument the life and death of Abraham Lincoln.

Answer 3

How would we know it was real if no church was built? Building the church on the spot makes it seem more likely that he was there.

Jesus wasn't the only person to be crucified, in fact thosands of crosses have been found throughout what was the Roman Empire. Jesus' death isn't tragic because he died for our salvation. So building a church honors not only the man, but the place where he died, and why he died.

Answer 4

The "Church" you refer to is called the Cathedral of the Holy Sepulchre. It is built on the spot where the Roman Catholic Church (and for that matter, most Protestant churches as well) believes Christ was crucified. The reason it was built? Why does anyone build a Christian church? To honor and glorify God and his Son, Jesus Christ.

In 306 a.d., Constantine, son of one of the Roman Tetrarchs named Constantius, came to power after his father died. Constantine wasn't chosen by his father to become Emperor, but was instead chosen as such by the Roman Army. Needless to say, there was a huge Civil War between the forces of Constantine, led by Constantine himself, and Maximian (one of the other tetrarchs who laid claim to the throne of Rome), whose forces were commanded by Maximian's son, Maxentius. Maxentius and his army were camped inside the city of Rome, and Constantine had laid siege by encamping outside the city.

The night before the battle, Constantine had a dream of a cross in the sky and heard the words "In hoc signo vinces" or "under this sign you will win". So, Constantine directed his soldiers to paint crosses on their shields before the battle. Needless to say, Constantine won and became the unchallenged Emperor of Rome. He also converted not only himself and his family, but the entire Empire to the Christian faith.

Afterwards, he sent his mother, the Empress Helena, to Jerusalem to find the site where Christ had been crucified, buried and was resurrected. After consulting with the scolars and theologians of the time in Jerusalem, the Empress found that the Emperor Herodian, in a vain attempt to erase any traces of Christianity, had built a pagan temple dedicated to the Roman gods Jupiter, Junon and venus on the site where it had been acknowledged for centuries that Christ had been crucified. The Emperess decreed the pagan temple be torn down and a new church be built on the same site. The Cathedral of the Holy Sepulchre still stands to this day. I've been there, ...it's an awesome experience.

Answer 5

How can you build a church on a spot where no one died?
That is the gift most people overlook. Is it the cross or the
stone rolled away from the tomb which points to the truth.
The church was built to honor a spiritual master and teacher
who lives as the "Christ" which is omnipresent always.

Answer 6

They thought they were getting closer to him (Jesus) by doing so. The 5th century I think Roman Catholics. In the Middle Ages it was a hot spot and pilgrims were urged to go to Jerusalem to see where their faith was crucified and Big Business to boot. But truly History is not cretin that is the spot. The mount of Skulls is written of where he was crucified supposedly but not necessarily that spot.

Answer 7

It's a place of power. A place where people congregated. They built churches on lots of those places in order to get people to come to church. Most of the people where already going to that spot so they built a church there in the hopes that people would come into the church.

Answer 8

The early Christians built churches anywhere they considered holy. They didn't necessarily treat it as a historical marker, like we do today, so sometimes they just plopped a church down in commemoration of what happened there.

Answer 9

I have been there and at that time a church was not on the spot. I believe that we were told that a structure would never be placed there because of its historical reasons.

Answer 10

Ever BEEN there. If there wasn't a Christian church built on it there would be a Muslim mosque built there just to calim the sacred ground. Possession is 9/10ths of the law as they say.