Forty days after the Resurrection, having appeared repeatedly to the disciples and given them final instructions, Christ led them out as far as Bethany on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem. He lifted up his hands and blessed them. As he blessed them, he parted from them and was lifted up; a cloud took him out of their sight.
As they stood gazing into the sky, two men in white robes stood by them: 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven' (Acts 1:11). The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and gathered with Mary and the other women in the Upper Room, where ten days later — at Pentecost — the Holy Spirit would descend. The small octagonal Chapel of the Ascension on the summit of the Mount of Olives — Crusader-era, on Byzantine foundations — preserves a stone bearing what is traditionally venerated as the footprint of Christ at the moment of His ascent.