Gethsemane, << gehth SEHM uh nee, >> is a garden spoken of in the New Testament. The word gethsemane is a Greek word that means oil press. The garden was located just east of Jerusalem, above the brook Kidron, on the side of the Mount of Olives (see Mount of Olives ). Jesus went there to pray on the night before his arrest and Crucifixion.
The exact location of the garden is not now known. The Latins built a wall around a plot of ground just across the Kidron from Jerusalem. They arranged it as a European garden and kept it as a sacred spot, “the Garden.” The Greeks, however, thought that Gethsemane was a little to the southeast of this garden. A third possible location was thought to be a short way north of both these places, beside the Virgin’s tomb. There is a cave to the right of the Church of the Tomb of the Virgin, called “the Grotto of the Agony.” Friars of the Franciscan order have controlled the Grotto since 1392, and the Garden since 1681.
