This was the Holy Land’s first Protestant church, consecrated in 1849. Located opposite the Citadel, it was built by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews, whose founders were inspired by the belief that the Jews would be restored to what was then Turkish Palestine, and that many would acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah before he returned. The first British consulate in Palestine was located in the compound, which now houses a guest house .
In order to present Christianity as something not totally alien to Judaism, the church was built in the Protestant style with several similarities to a synagogue. Jewish symbols and Hebrew script figure prominently at the altar and in the stained-glass windows, and like all synagogues in Jerusalem, the church faces Temple Mount/Al-Haram ash-Sharif.
