A walk through Nazareth, the northern Israeli city where Jesus Christ spent his hidden life

Founded 2200 years before our era, the city of Nazareth, in northern Israel, is world famous for one of its inhabitants.

A quiet one-hour walk through the city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the place where Christ was crucified and buried

Although he was born in Bethlehem (where his foster father was Saint Joseph), Jesus Christ spent his hidden life in Nazareth, that is, from his childhood until he turned 30. Nazareth was a small village in the region of Galilee. His long stay in that village is the reason why Jesus Christ was known as Jesus of Nazareth and often called the "Nazarene." Nazareth remained a completely Jewish community until the 4th century AD, under the Byzantine Empire, when Emperor Constantine ordered the construction of the first church there, the Church of the Annunciation, over the caves where, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary received the announcement from the Archangel Gabriel.

Following the defeat of a Persian invasion in the 7th century, the Jewish population of Nazareth was expelled by the Byzantine Empire, becoming a completely Christian town. After the Muslim invasion, the Church of the Annunciation was destroyed in the 8th century. In 1099, this town gained great importance when it became the capital of the Principality of Galilee, founded by an Italian nobleman, Tancred of Hauteville. After another Muslim invasion, in the 13th century, Sultan Baibars ordered the destruction of all the churches in Nazareth, although a Christian population remained. The Ottoman Empire took control of Nazareth in 1517, remaining there for four centuries, until the establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920.

Nazareth became part of the State of Israel in 1948. Today it is one of the most important Arab cities in northern Israel, with a population that is 60% Muslim and 40% Christian. In 1964, Pope Paul VI visited the city for the first time. Within the municipality of Nazareth, Nazareth Illit was founded in 1954, becoming an independent city in 1974, and is now a predominantly Jewish city.

A week ago, the YouTube channel Relaxing Walker posted a video of them taking a silent walk through Nazareth, showing what it's like today:

You can see some screenshots from this interesting video here. Here we see one of the streets in the old town of Nazareth.

The White Mosque is the oldest Muslim temple in Nazareth. It was built between 1804 and 1808, during Ottoman rule. Note that its inscription is in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew characters.

The current Basilica of the Annunciation, the largest Catholic church in the Middle East. It was built between 1960 and 1969 by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land on the site of the former Church of the Annunciation, built in the 4th century and destroyed by Muslims in the 8th century.

The Church of Saint Joseph. It is a beautiful Latin Catholic temple in the Neo-Romanesque style, built in 1914, on the site of the former Church of the Nutrition from the Byzantine era.

A gravestone with the Polish Army's coat of arms in the Church of Saint Joseph. With text in Polish and Latin, it commemorates the establishment of a school here for the children of families of the Polish Second Corps in 1944, during World War II, during their long journey from captivity in the USSR to the Middle East.