After the destruction of the Second Temple on 9th Ab 70 CE., many refugees from Judah in general and Jerusalem in particular, fled north to the Galilee and to Nazareth - among them the priestly family of Hafizetz, as is shown on the tablet of priestly courses found at Cæsarea. Nazareth was the home of Mary, Joseph and Jesus after the family's return from exile in Egypt following Jesus' birth and the decrees of Herod the Great. Christianity penetrated early into this Jewish town in the reign of Constantine the Great (about 330 CE), and there is considerable archæological evidence of churches belonging to the "Judeo-Christians" in the foundations of today's Church of the Annunciation. After the Arab conquest in the 7th Century Nazareth began to lose importance until the Crusader period when a new, larger church was built some of whose remains are still to be seen and have even been incorporated into the present church. In the late middle ages Nazareth's importance again fell into decline mainly through the obstructiveness of the early Turkish-Ottoman authorities and it wasn't until the beginning of the 17th Century that the Franciscans were at last able to resettle in Nazareth with some kind of stability and security. From the 19th Century onwards, Nazareth began to grow rapidly as the number of pilgrims, churches and hostels increased. In 1918, under the British, there were 11,000 residents in Nazareth basically an agricultural village at that time, 66% of whose residents were Christians. Including the new town (1958), of Nazareth Illit, there are now about 66,000 residents of Nazareth.
