 The earliest historical mention of the location Muristan is in 600 AD, when a certain Abbot Probus was commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.This hospice was most likely destroyed about fourteen years later when Jerusalem fell to the Persian army and the Christian inhabitants were slaughtered, and their churches and monasteries destroyed (see Revolt against Heraclius).The building was probably restored after Jerusalem fell again under Roman dominion in 629.