Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene is shining domes on the slope of the mount of olives, above the garden of Gethsemane. This is the main Church women's Gethsemane monastery Bethany community of the resurrection of Christ.

The heavenly patroness of the temple is mentioned by the Gospels Magdalene St. Marina. Devoted follower of Christ, the witness of His painful death, one of the myrrh-bearing women came to the tomb of the resurrected Savior. But the name of the Church and perpetuates the memory of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Tsar Alexander II.

The way of the future Empress began as a romantic tale: in 1838, the son of Nicholas I, Alexander, traveling in Europe in search of the bride, accidentally drove in Darmstadt, saw a fourteen year old Princess and fell in love with her. In 1841, held lavish wedding. When Alexander ascended the throne, accepted Orthodoxy Hessian Princess became a Russian Empress. During the coronation with her head dropped crown – this was seen as a bad sign. And indeed: the marriage was not happy. Alexander II did not differ faithfulness, his mistress Princess Catherine Dolgoruky gave birth to the Emperor four children. During the life of Maria Alexandrovna, the Tsar placed his second family in the Winter Palace.

Her husband's infidelity, frequent childbirth (the couple had eight children), death of the eldest son of crown Prince Nicholas undermined the health of the Empress. She died in 1880. A year later her sons, Grand Dukes Sergei and Pavel A., went on a pilgrimage to the Holy land. The head of the Russian ecclesiastical mission in Jerusalem Archimandrite Antonin gave the brothers the idea to build a temple in memory of his deceased mother. In 1885 in Gethsemane laid the Church according to the prominent Russian architect David Ivanovich Grimm.

Consecrated the Church in 1888, the ceremony was attended by the Grand Dukes Paul and Sergei Alexander and wife of Prince Sergei and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. The fates of all three was tragic. Sergei Alexandrovich was killed by a terrorist bomb Ivan kalyayev (Elizaveta Fyodorovna visited the assassin in prison and forgave him). Paul Alexandrovich in 1919, was shot in the Peter and Paul fortress. The Elizabeth Feodorovna, after the death of her husband sent all his fortune to charity (she founded in Moscow's Martha and Mary convent), in 1918, was arrested by the KGB. She was taken to Alapaevsk and with other members of the Imperial family were thrown alive into the mine. The peasants told me that even a few days out of the mine came the singing of prayers.

In 1921 delivered from Russia through China the body of the Martyr was buried in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

The seven-headed temple built in the neo-Russian style with white and grey local stone. The Church inside is equally gorgeous: multi-colored marble floors, walls covered with paintings and columns. On the chancel arch is a fresco painted by Sergey Ivanov "Mary Magdalene before the Roman Emperor Tiberius". The Church houses the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Smolensk "Hodegetria" and the icon of St. Mary Magdalene with a particle of her relics.