In the Northeast DC neighborhood of Brookland, home to the world’s second-largest concentration of Catholic institutions (after the Vatican), the 42-acre complex of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America stands apart on the wooded hillside of Mount Saint Sepulcher. It includes the neo-Byzantine Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the neo-Romanesque monastery; replicas of various shrines in Palestine, of catacombs in Rome, of the Lourdes grotto; relics of saints; elaborate gardens; and a retreat space, the Hermitage.
It was established in 1897 to extend the work of the Holy Land Franciscans to the United States. For more than 800 years the Holy Land Franciscans have served the people of the Holy Land and tended the sacred sites there. Founding Friar, Father Godfrey Schilling, OFM, sought specifically to encourage pilgrimages to the Washington, DC, monastery by replicating Holy Land shrines, so that people could experience them stateside even if they could not travel to the Holy Land.
As a sightseeing destination the Monastery can be easy to miss, even as guidebooks to Washington consistently list it as a top sight; in 1992 it was named to the National Register of Historic Places. It’s a find.
From the liner notes of Capital Finds (Raven OAR-201).