Church of Our Lady of Suffering in the corner of the Via Dolorosa and Al Wad Street belongs to the Armenian Catholic Church. Armenian Catholics in the world a little bit - about 600 thousand, and in Jerusalem, there are about 500 people. However, the temple is very popular among the pilgrims, he noted just two stations, third and fourth on the Way of the Cross of Jesus.

At the third station, Christians are experiencing falling under the cross of Jesus, the first of three. About these falls nothing is said in the Gospel, says about them only a tradition, but there is nothing impossible here. Usually sentenced dragged to the place of execution is not the whole cross, and the crossbar to the scales pillars dug poles, but one such bar can weigh up to 50 kilograms. It is logical to assume that Christ is brutally beaten before whips with metal inserts, exhausted.

Chapel of the third station and the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows of the efforts of the soldiers have been restored Polish army of General Anders. This army general gathered in 1941 in the Soviet Union of Polish prisoners of war and repression - by special agreement between the Soviet government and the Polish government-in-exile. Polyakov was sent to the Middle East - first to Iran, then to Palestine. Here in Jerusalem, the chaplain Father Stephan Parsley-Jablonski put a lot of effort to restore the dilapidated church on the Via Dolorosa. A great help rendered him Lieutenant Tadeusz Zielinski, a talented sculptor.

Zelinsky was among the few Polish officers in Soviet concentration camp survivors "Kozel'sk-1" (most of it was shot in 1940 at Katyn). The camp was in the Optina - Orthodox monastery, a closed Soviet power. Prisoners are stored living faith, there was no image of the Virgin Mary (all objects of worship were banned on pain of death). On a broken fragment of a wooden iconostasis piece of steel wire, found in the trash, Zelinsky carved relief - Madonna with Child. Then the sculptor Anders got into the army, and the icon of the Mother of God went to Kozelsk with Polish soldiers in Persia, Iraq, Palestine, at Monte Cassino. Now she is in the church of St. Andrew Bobola in London.

In Jerusalem, the church of Our Lady of Sorrows of Zelinsky created a piercing reliefs. One depicts a fallen under the weight of the cross of Jesus; the fresco angels from heaven looks at him in horror and sadness. Above the entrance to the churchyard is the second bas - the Virgin Mary on it, beside herself with grief touches hands tortured Son. The meeting with the Mother of Jesus - the theme of the Fourth Station of the Cross. This episode is also not described in the Gospels, but very believable.

The door of the chapel leads to the gift shop - passing through it, the tourist enters the crypt of the church, built in 1905 on the ruins of the Byzantine building. In the crypt under the statues of Jesus and Mary, you can see the ancient mosaic floor - there is lined image of a pair of sandals. They say that here and there was the Virgin Mary. Evidence of this, of course not, but that's not important pilgrims - they think about love overcoming anguish, pain and fear.