By far the main attrac­tion of Beth­le­hem. The basil­i­ca is part of a fair­ly large com­plex, includ­ing sev­er­al church­es. The first basil­i­ca was built on this site (arbi­trar­i­ly cho­sen by Hele­na, the moth­er of Emper­or Con­stan­tine, and assigned to her as the birth­place of Jesus Christ) in 339, but was destroyed in the 6th cen­tu­ry dur­ing the sup­pres­sion of some rebel­lion, which hap­pened in Pales­tine with envi­able reg­u­lar­i­ty. In 565, under Emper­or Jus­tin­ian, the basil­i­ca was restored. Dur­ing the Cru­sades, it host­ed the coro­na­tions of the kings of the short-lived Pales­tin­ian monar­chies, and at the same time, the Cru­saders in the 12th cen­tu­ry thor­ough­ly restored and expand­ed the church com­plex. In 1244, Pales­tine was cap­tured by the Turks and caused severe dam­age to the church, which was repaired in 1480 by the joint efforts of sev­er­al Euro­pean states. In the 1830s, the church was severe­ly dam­aged by earth­quakes, lay in ruins for a long time, was loot­ed, and in the 1850s even caused a diplo­mat­ic con­flict between France (which want­ed to gain con­trol of the church) and Rus­sia (which did not want any involve­ment from France), which became one of the rea­sons for France’s entry into the Crimean War. In the 1930s, the church was final­ly put in order. In 2002, an inci­dent occurred when a group of Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants took monks hostage inside the church. Israeli troops did not storm the build­ing, and after 39 days, nego­ti­a­tions were suc­cess­ful­ly con­clud­ed and the hostages were released. Cur­rent­ly, the basil­i­ca is joint­ly admin­is­tered by the Greek Ortho­dox, Roman Catholic, and Armen­ian Apos­tolic church­es. In the mid­dle of the com­plex is the 6th-cen­­tu­ry basil­i­ca itself, which is accessed from the square through a very small door. A per­son of aver­age height has to squeeze through it with their head bowed. The basil­i­ca itself has five naves, respec­tive­ly, with four rows of columns, and mosaics are laid out on the walls. The mosa­ic floor has been par­tial­ly pre­served. To the left of the basil­i­ca is the com­plex of the Catholic Church of St. Cather­ine (1852), where the bas-relief “Tree of Jesse” by the mod­ern Pol­ish sculp­tor Czes­law Dzwigaj was recent­ly installed. From the apse of the basil­i­ca, a stair­case leads down to the grot­to, des­ig­nat­ed by Hele­na as the birth­place of Christ. The place itself is marked with a met­al star. All pil­grims go there at once, try to choose a moment when there are few­er vis­i­tors in the grot­to.