Custody of the Holy Land

The Custody of the Holy Land (Latin: Custodia Terræ Sanctæ) is a custodian priory of the Order of Friars Minor in Jerusalem, founded as the Province of the Holy Land in 1217 by Saint Francis of Assisi, who had also founded the Franciscan Order in 1209. In 1342, the Franciscans were declared by two papal bulls as the official custodians of the Holy Places in the name of the Catholic Church.

The Custody headquarters are located in the Monastery of Saint Saviour, a 16th-century Franciscan monastery near the New Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. The office can bestow—only to those entering its office—the Jerusalem Pilgrim's Cross upon deserving Catholic visitors to the city.

The Franciscans trace their presence in the Holy Land to 1217. By 1229, the friars had a small house near the fifth station of the Via Dolorosa and in 1272 were permitted to settle in the Cenacle on Mount Zion. In 1309 they also settled in Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre along with the Canons Regular.

After the final fall of the second Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291, the title of Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was vested in the Custody ex officio in Rome, while resuming its activities in the Holy Land, including surveilling the accolades of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre 1342–1489 until its Grand Magistry was vested in the papacy. Following the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem as residential episcopal see in 1847, the Patriarch henceforth additionally assumed the position of the order's ecclesiastical superior, eventually supplanting the Custody of the Holy land as Grand Prior of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Custody of the Holy Land has repeatedly expressed concern about the survival of the Christians in the Holy Land, including the strained situation for Christians in the rest of the Middle East. Between 2004 and 2016, the Custodial Curia was led by Custos Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa. Since 2016, the chief custodian has been Francesco Patton.