Visitors to the Church of the Nativity have to bow to get in, a design change made centuries ago specifically to stop people riding horses and carts through the front door.
A door built to be small on purpose
The main entrance, known as the Door of Humility, was reduced to a low rectangular opening under Ottoman-era modification, requiring nearly all adult visitors to stoop to pass through, a practical alteration intended to prevent looters and mounted riders from entering the church directly rather than an original architectural feature of the building's earlier, larger entrance.
A 2002 standoff
In 2002, during a period of intense Israeli-Palestinian conflict, dozens of Palestinian militants and civilians took refuge inside the church, leading to a weeks-long armed standoff with Israeli forces surrounding the building, an episode that placed one of Christianity's most significant sites at the centre of an active modern military confrontation rather than only historical or denominational dispute.
As this entry's companion article covers
The shared custody of the building among multiple Christian denominations, and the disputed theft of a silver star marking the traditional birthplace, an incident that fed into wider nineteenth century diplomatic tensions between European powers over protection of Christian sites, are addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.