Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity of the Virgin is located in the Muslim Quarter in the most Lions Gate. According to Christian tradition, this is where the house of the righteous Joachim and Anne, parents of the Virgin Mary.

Canonical Gospels say nothing about the birth of the Blessed Virgin. For more information about the event can be found only in the apocryphal Gospel of James, written in II century. Pious couple from Jerusalem, Joachim and Anna had no children. Childlessness among the Jews in those days meant that God has not blessed the couple. Head of the family was denied the right of first offer to God a sacrifice: "You must not offer gifts to the first, because you did not create offspring of Israel." Anna even scolded the maid, "The Lord shut your bosom." But grieving woman, an angel appeared and said that God had heard her prayer, she would conceive and bear, and its offspring "will speak in the world." Anna gave birth to a girl who had the great destiny.

The temple is located in the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Anna, in a building built in 1907. Above the entrance and it is written in English: "The Place of the Nativity of the Virgin." On tablets pointer has the same inscription in Russian. A small church, decorated with rich iconostasis, on the ground floor. Stone steps lead down the steep stairs, into the crypt: here, according to Orthodox tradition, preserved the chamber, which was born and the Virgin Mary. The walls of the upper chamber of the cave, built of rough stone in Jerusalem, the place of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin indicated by a cross in the ancient mosaic floor. In icons of saints righteous Joachim and Anna are many childless pilgrims leave notes with prayers to extend the order.

It is believed, however, that very wealthy household Joachim and Anne captured territory and a nearby Catholic church of St. Anne, built in the times of the Crusaders. The Catholic tradition has it that the place of the Nativity of the Virgin is located in the crypt of the local. The contradictions between the Orthodox and Catholic traditions is hardly significant: the distance between the two temples - only seventy meters, and the distance of two thousand years of absolute certainty does not allow to specify a particular point where there was a great event.