West Bank city's only church keeps the faith in turbulent city

Father Eliseev enters the cavernous church, room enough for 200 people, on a Sunday morning but he won't be giving a sermon today, nor any week in the foreseeable future.
Eliseev is head of the only church in a city where there are almost no Christians. His Russian Orthodox Oak of Mamre Church is in Hebron in the Palestinian West Bank, a city holy to both Muslims and Jews, but which holds less significance for Christians.
Hebron has also been among the areas hardest hit by a wave of deadly violence that began in October, putting the church even further out of consideration for pilgrims who might otherwise be enticed to see the site where tradition says Abraham met three angels.

But Eliseev, 46 with a round face and beard, argues the lack of Christian interest in the city is mistaken, pointing out that the church's gardens contain the Oak of Mamre, where Abraham's mystical meeting is believed to have occurred.
"This is a very sacred place to me," he says, wearing a long black robe and traditional black klobuk on his head. "The relationship with this monastery is like a relationship with God."
Hebron is in particular known for the site Jews refer to as the Cave of the Patriarchs and Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, where the biblical Abraham is believed to be buried.

Around 500 Israeli settlers now live near the site protected by an army buffer zone in the Palestinian city of over 200,000, a constant source of tension and violence.

Both Israel and the Palestinian territories are dotted with Christian communities, small pockets in most cities.
But in Hebron that isn't the case - Bethlehem, 20 kilometres north, and Jerusalem, a further eight, are Christianity's holiest sites, but Hebron has far less importance.
Eliseev compared the church's continued presence to some of Abraham's visits to the city, including when he overpaid for land where he intended to bury his wife Sarah. "People said (to Abraham) 'Are you crazy, where are you going?'"

The church itself is behind a gate on a bustling main road. A guard swings it open and a road winds past the oak to the church - an imposing stone building with two cross-adorned domes. Its famous oak looks nearly dead - propped up by a metal structure behind a fence. While outside Hebron bustles, on the grounds there is near silence. It is called a church, but is closer to a monastery.