The Heiliges Grab is Görlitz's most extraordinary monument: a complex of medieval buildings constructed as a faithful replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Built between 1481 and 1504 to the specifications that local merchant Georg Emmerich brought back from his Jerusalem pilgrimage, it is one of only three such replicas in the world outside the Middle East and the best preserved.
The complex consists of several buildings — a chapel representing Golgotha, a copy of the Edicule (the tomb of Christ), and a memorial chapel — arranged around a small courtyard in the southern part of the old city. Medieval pilgrims who could not afford the dangerous journey to Jerusalem could earn the same indulgences by visiting Görlitz instead. The buildings are remarkably intact and the atmosphere, away from the main tourist circuits, is genuinely contemplative.