CORONAVIRUS: Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre To Close Its Doors For The First Time Since 1349: 'Very Sad'

As Israel fights to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the Holy Land, the new virus is shutting down historic sites, sacred to the major religions.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by pilgrims to be the site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem's Old City, closed its doors for the first time since the Black Plague, according to the keeper of the keys to the now-locked church.

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"To see the holy church closed is very, very, very sad for me," Adeeb Joudeh told the Washington Post after he got the order from Israeli health officials on March 25. "All the churches, the mosques, the synagogues in Jerusalem are closed, but we understand the situation. We are all praying."

Tradition states that two non-Christian families were given custody of the key and another the task of unlocking the doors and sealing them shut each evening, because of denominational infighting, something common within the Holy Land sites over the years, according to the Post.

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Typically, tourists and pilgrims are flooding in and out of the holy site, but now the UNESCO World Heritage site is eerily silent, especially in the days leading up to Passover, Easter, and Ramadan.

But religious leaders in thearea are still praying at the doors of the Holy Sepulchre.

The closure comes after the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, was shut down and amid the Western Wall, the holiest site for Jews to pray, remained open but only to residents of the Old City.