Today we celebrate St. Cyril f Jerusalem who was ordained a priest shortly after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in AD 313. Shortly after that Queen Helen (son of the emperor) arrived in Jerusalem to discover the holy sites and to build churches commemorating the Gospel.
The groundbreaking was AD 326. Since St. Cyril was a priest and soon after a bishop of Jerusalem, he would have witnessed the construction. He was the head catechist to train new converts prior to baptism.
Here are three illustrations of the church from those early years—very different from its appearance today. I took these pictures from the aged pictures in the sacristy of the Holy Sepulchre.
