Trilogy of Historical Churches in Old Damascus

Three historical churches known as pilgrimage sites and tourist

destinations for the peoples of the Earth.

1-Ananias Chapel:  A Byzantine church known also as Dimas Ananias, (where dimas is an underground resort).

So is this chapel, dug underground in the solid rock in the same place where Ananias, the martyr saint, used to worship and hide from persecution.

From this dimas Christianity spread all over the world as a religion of tolerance and compassion.

Historians say that the church belongs to the second quarter of the fourth century AD.

It was destroyed in 1860, and renovated in 1867 to be used as a center of worship and blessing.

It is located in Ananias Alley, to the right of the Eastern Gate of Damascus, near the home of Ananias the Damascene, one of the 72 disciples of Jesus Christ who was advised to look for Saul, a man that had guarded the clothes of the soldiers who stoned St. Stephen (the first Christian martyr) and who, later, came to Damascus to persecute its people for embracing Christianity.

Ananias came to Damascus in 36 AD. looking for the place where Saul was living in the quarter of al Kallaseh, near the Jaqmaqiya school of today.

Saul lost his sight on his way to Damascus in a place called Kawkab after Jesus Christ was revealed to him as strong light that dazzled his eyes telling him: “Saul, Saul Why do you persecute me?” Ananias found Saul, healed his eyes, then baptized him in River Barada.

Saul, who was later known as St. Paul, was dangled in a basket from above the wall of Damascus in a place now known as Bab Keissan, and then fled to Greece from where Christianity found its way to Europe. St. Ananias died as a martyr in Beit Jibrin, (known as Eleutheropolis during the Roman Period) near the western slopes of Mt. Hebron in Palestine in the first century AD, while preaching there around the years 60-70AD. St Ananias was tortured, his limbs burnt, and then stoned by orders of Lucian, the Roman governor.

P.S. Ananias the Damascene is also known as Ananias II, to be differentiated from Ananias I who died as a martyr also in Arbila of Persia or Arbil of Iraq . St Ananias Church was restored in 1973.

 2 – Church of St. Sarkis One of the oldest Armenian Orthodox historical churches in Damascus, just close to the wall of the old city to the left of the Eastern Gate of Damascus. Before the Islamic Conquest of Damascus, 635 AD.

It was a church of the Jacobean Syrians bearing the name of St. Sergio’s and St Bacchus, patron saints of the Jacobeans.

Researcher father Ayyoub Sumayya wrote: “the presence of the Syrian Armenians, a sect of the Jacobeans, in Syria is accidental rather than related to racial cleansing problems as is the case with other Armenians in the word.

They used to come from their home country to Palestine passing by Syria to visit the holy Christian places. In the cities on the routes from their home they established supply and recreational stations.

Later these stations changed into religious shrines permanently inhabited by religious people. After the Islamic conquest of Syria, and during the predominance of the Ottoman rule, and as a result of the Ottoman – Russian wars, Armenians immigrated in large numbers from the Armenian areas near the Russian borders, to Syria, where they built chapels, holy seats and endowments, in coordination with the Ottoman Empire which, at that time, recognized them and gave them permission to do so.

Their central archdiocese, the Church of St. Sarkis (the present one), remained their central seat until the year 1830 when a group of them dissected and joined the Papal Seat.

The church was restored more than twice in the seventeen and eighteenth century.

It was burned in 1860 and rebuilt in 1866 in the shape of a cross topped by a spherical dome. Walls were decorated with murals representing the saints.

In 1995 a mausoleum for the Armenian martyrs was built in the courtyard of the church.

3 -The Church of Virgin Mary.

One of the oldest churches in Damascus, near the Eastern Gate, in al Kanissa Street.

Originally, it was a Byzantine church bearing the name of Virgin Mary.

It is believed that it was built during the rule of emperor Arcadius 395-408, the first Byzantine emperor.

After the conquest of Damascus 635 AD. the church was neglected and partly destroyed, to be rebuilt again in 706.

On 926 AD. it deteriorated and was rebuilt again by the Abbasid Caliph “Al Muqtader Billah”.

The Arab Moslem historian Ibn Jubair visited the church and wrote the following: “In the center of Damascus, there is a church highly appreciated by the Romans known as the Church of Mary.

It is second to the Holy Church of Jerusalem.

The church is majestically built, richly ornamented with great valuable pictures (Icons).

The church is fantastic administered by the Romans without any objection”. The church was burnt during the rule of the Fatimid Caliph (Al Hakim Bi Amri Allah) 996-1021 to be restored later by Khatkin, the Turkish governor of Damascus.

On 1400, like the other edifices of Damascus, it was destroyed by Tamerlain during the invasion of the Tartars, and was rebuilt again after their evacuation.

After the Damascus earthquake of 1759 the walls of the church chinked and Patriarch Daniel ordered the church to be destroyed and rebuilt, an action that took about two years.

The church was built in two churches: the Church of Mary and the Church of Mar Nicola (St. Nicholas). In 1860 the first church burnt again and was rebuilt in 1861 and both churches were merged again in one under the name of the church of Virgin Mary. The church was renovated in 1953.

 

Haifaa Mafalani