* 2002 – Israeli forces surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem into which armed Palestinians had retreated.

Bethlehem's chief economic sector is tourism which peaks during the Christmas season when Christian pilgrims throng to the Church of the Nativity.

During the Samaritan revolt of 529, Bethlehem was sacked and its walls and the Church of the Nativity destroyed, but they were rebuilt on the orders of the Emperor Justinian I.

In 637, shortly after Jerusalem was captured by the Muslim armies, ' Umar ibn al-Khattāb, the second Caliph, promised that the Church of the Nativity would be preserved for Christian use.

" In 1009, during the reign of the sixth Fatimid Caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the Church of the Nativity was ordered to be demolished, but was spared by local Muslims, because they had been permitted to worship in the structure's southern transept.

In 1099, Bethlehem was captured by the Crusaders, who fortified it and built a new monastery and cloister on the north side of the Church of the Nativity.

During the operation, the IDF besieged the Church of the Nativity, where about 200 Palestinian militants sought refuge in the Church.

Nativity scene at the Christ the King Church in Sanok

Socrates Scholasticus ( born c. 380 ), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full description of the discovery ( that was repeated later by Sozomen and by Theodoret ) which emphasizes the role played in the excavations and construction by Helena ; just as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ( also founded by Constantine and Helena ) commemorated the birth of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would commemorate his death and resurrection.

The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of the " Holy Righteous Prophet and King David " on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers ( two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord ), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus.

The Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception ( when Mary was conceived free from original sin ) on 8 December, exactly nine months before celebrating the Nativity of Mary.

* 2002 – The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.

The Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar begins on 1 September – proceeding annually from the Nativity of the Theotokos to the celebration of Jesus ' birth in the winter ( Christmas ), through his death and resurrection in the spring ( Pascha / Easter ), to his Ascension and the Assumption of his mother ( Dormition of the Theotokos / Virgin Mary ) in the summer.

** Nativity of the Theotokos ( Orthodox Church )

** Nativity of Mary ( Roman Catholic Church ), ( Anglo-Catholicism )

With all the greatest shrines in the Christian world to choose from, it seemed that when the local Arab Christians had a problem – an illness, or something more complicated: a husband detained in an Israeli prison camp, for example – they preferred to seek the intercession of St George in his grubby little shrine at Beit Jala rather than praying at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

* 1100: On December 25, Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned as the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

* The Church of the Nativity is built in Bethlehem.

* April 2 – Israeli forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, when militants take shelter there.

* May 9 – A 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ends, when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries.

* The Samaritans revolt and are defeated ; the Church of the Nativity is burnt down during the uprising.

* The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, is rebuilt until 565.

In the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a Palestinian gunmen was shot dead by Israeli snipers.

Such cases are also controversial inside the Church.

It also houses the world's highest church inside a skyscraper, Sky City Church.

The discovery of the kokhim tombs just beyond the west end of the Church, and more recent archaeological investigation of the rotunda floor, suggest that a narrow spur of at least ten yards length would have had to jut out from the rock face if the contents of the Aedicule were once inside it.

* 1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II ; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church.

In England John Wesley led the Methodist movement inside the Church of England.

* The grand seal of Harvard University inside Memorial Church is flanked by two inward-pointing fasces.

Russian Orthodox Church requires all married women to wear headscarves inside the church ; this tradition is often extended to all women, regardless of marital status.

In the first century AD, the Christian Church at Pergamon inside the main building of the Red Basilica was one of the Seven Churches to which the Book of Revelation was addressed.

Originally, Moscow processions began inside the Kremlin and terminated at Trinity Church, now known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, but in 1658 Patriarch Nikon reversed the order of procession.

He is still buried inside the Cathedral Church.

Therefore, a more complete definition of what a saint is, has to do with the way that saints, through their humility and their love of humankind, saved inside them the entire Church, and loved all people.

William Withering's memorial plaque inside St Bartholomew's Church, Edgbaston

Of great artistic value, the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the baroque Church of the SS. Crucifix of 1629, with inside a wooden canopy of the ' 700 and a precious wooden crucifix from the first ' 600 ' Humble Petralia.

Efforts at language revival continue to be undertaken, both inside and outside the Church, and have attracted the interest of both Copts and Muslims in Egypt.

The LDS Church began their eventual abandonment of polygamy in 1890, releasing " The Manifesto ," which officially suggested that members obey the law of the land ( which was equivalent to forbidding new polygamous marriages inside the U. S. and its territories, but not in Mormon settlements in Canada and Mexico ).

But, some Armenian Christians ( especially in the region of Cappadocia and Trebizond inside the Byzantine Empire ) did accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and engaged in polemics against the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The stone bearing the image thought to represent Verbeia now stands inside the All Saints Parish Church in Ilkley.

After Norman's birth his parents joined the Southern Baptist church, which prohibited dancing, going to the cinema, and " almost everything that didn't occur inside Church ".

A memorial stone hangs inside Saint Andrew's Church.

The area's first school was built in 1893, inside the Peru Baptist Church.

Since the county jail was not large enough to hold them all, Hines ' men were imprisoned inside the Methodist Church in Leavenworth.