The modern Church was built over an ancient cave from 1st Century AD, believed to be the traditional site where Jesus taught the most famous Christian prayer "Our Father" or "Pater Noster (Latin)" (Mathew 6:9-13; Luke 11: 2-4). The same cave on the top of Mount Olives was the cornerstone of earlier Crusader (12th Cent) and Byzantine (4th Cent) Churches built over the site. The earliest record we have about this cave is from the 3rd-century Acts of John (ch. 97). The church historian Eusebius (260-340) also records about a church built over a cave on the Mount of Olives under the direction of Emperor Constantine's mother Helena in the early 4th century. The following Church was also reported by the Bordeaux pilgrim in 333 and the Spanish pilgrim Egeria (384). Egeria refers to this church as Eleona (Olives) Church.
The first Church (4th Cent) was built by Empress Helena to commemorate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. However, when the Ascension Site moved upto a nearby hill (Today's Ascension Chapel), the cave became associated with Jesus' teachings on the conflict between good and evil (Matt 24:1-26:2). Persians destroyed the Church in 614 AD and after that the cave somehow got associated with Lord's Prayer. Crusaders built a Church here in 1152 to commemorate "Lord's Prayer". Shortly after, in 1187 and 1345, Muslims completely destroyed the Church and its premises.
The site returned to Christian hands only when the Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne, bought the land in mid 19th Century. In 1868 she built a cloister and founded a Carmelite convent in 1872. Finally in 1910, the Byzantine foundations and the cave were rediscovered. An attempt was made to reconstruct the Byzantine church in 1915, but it remains still unfinished.
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