The Carmelite order began with 12th century religious hermits, who, imitating the prophet Elijah who sometimes took refuge in a cave, organized themselves in caves on the Carmel Mountain in Haifa during the Crusader occupation.
Church of the Nativity
Starting from the recent and moving back to the past, the Church of the Nativity was the scene of the hostage crisis in 2005, for which there was a bloodless resolution thanks to the fine mediators on the scene.
A bit further back, in 1852, a “joint-custody” arrangement was made for the church, granted to the Roman Catholic, Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches. The Greeks have the responsibility for the Grotto of the Nativity. This arrangement came about after the theft of the Silver Star, considered to mark the exact site of the Nativity, which resulted in an international crisis over the Holy Places, the dispute over the protectorships of the holy places ultimately leading to the Crimean War from 1854 till 1856. 
The circumstances of Jesus’ birth are presented and interpreted differently by Matthew and Luke. Matthew seems to claim that Mary and Joseph were from Bethlehem and then moved to live in Nazareth, with baby Jesus, after Herod’s decree. Luke proposes that they were actually from Nazareth but that Jesus was born in Bethlehem while they were in town for a special occasion. These are irreconcilably different but historians tend towards the Matthew story due to other historical discrepancies in some of Luke’s writings. But it is agreed that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The manger’s exact location is also subject to interpretation of the words for “room,” “inn” and “cave.” Those who were writing a century after Jesus’ birth that He was born in a cave, may have been in agreement with both Luke AND Matthew since the rooms of houses or inns at the time had alcoves looking distinctly like caves.
As for the church itself, in 326, Constantine and his mother, Saint Helena, commissioned a church to be built over the cave, at the same time that they were presiding over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher nearby in Jerusalem. The first church of the nativity that had an octagonal floor plan placed directly over the cave was dedicated on May 31, 339. There are portions of the floor mosaic from this period that still survive, against all odds in light of the building and re-building that subsequently took place. The Church of the Nativity was much neglected in the Mamaluke and Ottoman periods, but spared from total destruction. Even in 1834, an earthquake destroyed the ornaments and furnishings of the cave, but the church itself survived.
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