In her pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the end of the fourth century, the virgin Egeria describes the liturgical celebrations in Jerusalem in great detail. In her account, the Hispanic pilgrim narrates that, when at the Sunday vigil the bishop enters the Anastasis - the basilica of the Holy Sepulcher - and reads the passage of the resurrection of Jesus, the crowd is so moved that "even the most hard-hearted would burst into tears for what the Lord had suffered for us" (pathway, 24,10).

The death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus constitute the culminating truth of the Christian faith. Christians confess that with his death and resurrection Jesus has conquered death. The empty tomb of Jesus is like the cry that resounds in time - also in ours - of the message that the angels announced on Easter Sunday: "He is risen, he is not here". The appearances of the risen Lord completed the meaning of a tomb that did not signify death but victory. 

The Christian community has venerated and venerates the tomb as a sign of the truth of the preaching of the apostles. The empty tomb gives external and physical solidity to the testimonies of the apparitions of the Risen One. It is the bridge of union between the crucified and the risen, the permanent sign of the saving power of God that frees Jesus from death. It is, together with the cross, the most eloquent relic of the Christian faith and, therefore, worthy of the greatest veneration.