RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Russian Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Trinity and Holy Forefathers Church in Hebron was once a lively venue for pilgrims in the late 20th century, but it will have a quiet Orthodox Christmas Eve on Jan. 6. A few Russian women who live in Hebron will come in to offer the season’s greetings to the resident clergy, who will then go to the Greek Orthodox Church of Bethlehem for the occasion.

Located just west of the city center, the large, crucifix-shaped building is the only Christian site in this Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank. Its golden domes, frescoes and gold-painted icons display classical Eastern Orthodox architectural style, but Islamic influence is evident in the oriental motifs and arched windows.

The monastery was built in the second half of the 19th century at the site of a historic oak tree. According to the Bible, the site is where God and three angels appeared to Abraham and announced that his wife Sarah would become pregnant. The tree is known as the Oak of Mamre or Oak of Abraham.

Badr Zablah, a monastery guard, told Al-Monitor that the Russian Orthodox clergy had originally tried to buy the land around the tree but only Muslims were allowed to buy land under Ottoman law. Consequently, Archimandrite Antonin, the influential head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem during the 1860s, signed a hundred-year lease and gradually rented more land around the site and built the tower next to it now known as Al-Tantura, Arabic for "peak." Then came the monastery and eventually the Holy Forefathers Church was built in 1906. The locals called the complex al-Maskubiyyah — “Muskovite” in Arabic — in reference to the Russian Orthodox clergy who lived in the monastery.