Find All Holy Land Churches at .... Stella Maris is latin for “Star of the Sea”. It refers not to the magnificent view, but rather to an early title accorded Mary, the mother of Jesus. The monastery is the world headquarters of a Catholic religious order of friars and nuns, the Carmelites. The order had its origins at the end of the 12th century when St Berthold, a Frenchman who had gone to the Holy Land as a Crusader, had a vision of Christ denouncing the evil done by soldiers. In the garden of Stella Maris Church, a monument is dedicated to wounded French soldiers who were killed by the Mamluk governor Ahmed Pasha el-Jazzar after Napoleon withdrew in 1799. Visit us at .