St Peter in Gallicantu

About St Peter in Gallicantu

The Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu is a Catholic church on the eastern slope of Mount Zion, just outside the walls of the Old City of Al-Quds, overlooking the Kidron Valley. The Latin name Gallicantu means "cock-crow", a reference to the New Testament episode in which Peter denied knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crowed; the church is dedicated to the memory of that denial. Beneath the church is a crypt with ancient caves, said to be where Jesus was held overnight in the house of the high priest Caiaphas before being brought before Pontius Pilate. In the courtyard stands a large wooden model of the Old City as it was in the eighteenth century, and on the hillside beside the church an ancient stone stairway is believed to be part of the route Jesus walked from Gethsemane into the city. The site is quiet and far less crowded than the shrines inside the walls, and its views over the Kidron Valley, the village of Silwan and the Mount of Olives are among the best in the area.

Where:

Jerusalem, Palestine