Nazareth is a small city of mostly modern appearance. Although the earliest human dwellings on the site date from the remote Aeneolithic age, the growth and urban development of the village that witnessed the childhood of Jesus, are of relatively recent origin. Not until the seventeenth century, when a Franciscan community settled there permanently, did favourable conditions exist for the place to be repopulated. Formerly, Nazareth had experienced a stormy history, conquered by the Romans and later by the Arabs, and only during the periode of the Crusades (end of the eleventh century) had seen a time of splendour as the seat of Bishops and the main administratine centre of Galilee. It was destroyed in the second half of the thirteenth century, and abandoned. The Nazareth of our days is a conglomerate of races and religions, whose observances require different kinds of buildings. Beside the Jews and the Arab Muslims smaller groups are also represented: melchites and Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Maronites, and other smaller Churches