On April 28, 2021, on Great Wednesday, a new documentary film "The Jerusalem Church", created with the participation of the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage, was shown on the state TV channel "Culture".
"The Jerusalem Church is the oldest and the very first Orthodox Church," says the author and presenter of the film, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. – It was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and in this sense is rightly called the Mother of all Churches. In one of the verses performed at Sunday Vespers, it is sung: "Rejoice, holy Zion, Mother of the Churches, God's dwelling place, you are the first to accept the remission of sins by the resurrection." We are talking here about Zion, that is, Jerusalem. It was here that the main events of the gospel history took place – the trial of Jesus Christ, His crucifixion and burial. And it was the Jerusalem community of disciples who first saw the risen Savior. From here, from Jerusalem, the news of the resurrection of Christ spread to all corners of the earth."
In an exclusive interview given specifically for the film, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus of Jerusalem says: "Jerusalem is the place of the embodiment of our Christian faith and the embodiment of Sacred history. This is the place where a person meets God, and therefore Jerusalem can be called the capital of the world spiritual life. And our mission here is to preserve and increase spiritual life, so that the sacred history does not become something long gone, but remains a part of our daily life, our future, part of our faith in the Resurrection of the Word, the Crucified Lord Jesus Christ."
Other participants in the film include Archbishop Theodosius of Sebaste, clerics, monastics and lay people of the Church of Jerusalem. They tell about how the oldest Christian Church, the guardian of the Holy Sepulchre and other common Christian shrines, lives today. The film was shot in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, other churches and monasteries in Jerusalem, in the Lavra of St. Sava the Consecrated, in the monastery of St. George the Hozevite, in the holy places of Galilee and Samaria.
The film was shot by the studio "Neofit".
You can also watch the documentary on YouTube at [link] (https://youtu.be/FzVQHzksJiU).