Ein Karem is an ancient village near Jerusalem, now its Western district. Immersed in the green hilly landscape with farm houses, over which the towering bell towers of churches, it is not like the rest of the city. This extraordinary settlement history: it gave the world John the Baptist.

People settled here for thousands of years, attracted by the springs need in a hot climate water. Ein Karem in Arabic and in Hebrew and means "a source in the vineyard". The village is mentioned in the old Testament (jer 6:1), written about the spring in the famous Copper scroll from Qumran hoard.

The Scripture States that a pregnant young Mary Jesus went "into the hill country, to a city of Judah", to see her cousin Elizabeth, which was at the time under the heart of the future John the Baptist. "The city of Judah" is present, Ein Karem. There was a summer house of the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. The location identified in the IV century, the mother of Emperor Constantine, Saint Helen equal to the Apostles, who organized the Holy Land archaeological site. Perhaps that St. Helen was built on the site of the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth the first Church. Later the crusaders built here two-storey temple, which was restored in 1955, the Catholic Church of the Visitation.

Directly with the name of John the Baptist affiliated Church in Ein Kerem, with similar stories. The first Catholic, St. John in the mountains, built in the late XIX century on the ruins of the temples of the time of Herod, Byzantium and the crusaders. Tradition asserts that discovered the cave is the birthplace of John the Baptist. The Greek Orthodox Church of St. built at the same time, and also on the ruins of the temples of earlier eras. In the village is the Church of St. John in the Wilderness, keeping the memory of the place where the Baptist lived as a hermit. The first mention of being on this site the chapel belongs to the XII century.

On top of one of the local mountains stands the monastery of Notre-Dame-de-Sion, where since the nineteenth century housed a shelter for orphaned girls. In the local Church has excellent acoustics, there are often concerts. The monastery is famous for its gorgeous garden.

In Ein Karem and a small corner of Russia – Orthodox Gorny convent. It exists since the XIX century, the Church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God was completed and consecrated only in 2012. To the right of the entrance is a stone, near which, according to legend, preached by John the Baptist.

The name, Ein Karem true now. In the southern part of the village still has a source from which, according to Christian tradition, on the way to the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth stood, drunk virgin Mary. Studies have shown that people used the source from the bronze age. And now many come with bottles to fetch water from the spring Mary. Now there is a mosque in the ground floor – a small room with vaulted ceilings. Pure cold water is flowing from a narrow tunnel, hewn in the rock in the era of the Second Temple.