Kathisma Church
Christmas means Bethlehem to both Israel visitors and armchair Holy Land travelers. But on the way to Bethlehem is a site oft neglected: the scant remains of a Byzantine-era church that for Christians of ancient times, was nearly as important as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
Did we say scant? Well, if you blink, you’ll miss them. And yet this was one of the largest fifth-century churches in the Holy Land, and unlike other churches it was dedicated not to an event in the life of Jesus, but rather to Jesus’ mother Mary – probably the first such church to do so anywhere in the
The Kathisma church was built around a rock where early Christian tradition says that Mary rested while on her way with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
The church was built by a wealthy widow named Ikelia in AD 456 on what was already a major pilgrimage site. It was enlarged in the 6th century, but destroyed around the 11th century.
Its existence was known from Byzantine literature, but the location was a mystery until 1992 when a bulldozer dug into a mosaic floor buried in an olive grove during widening of the Jerusalem-Hebron highway.
Did we say scant? Well, if you blink, you’ll miss them. And yet this was one of the largest fifth-century churches in the Holy Land, and unlike other churches it was dedicated not to an event in the life of Jesus, but rather to Jesus’ mother Mary – probably the first such church to do so anywhere in the
The Kathisma church was built around a rock where early Christian tradition says that Mary rested while on her way with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
The church was built by a wealthy widow named Ikelia in AD 456 on what was already a major pilgrimage site. It was enlarged in the 6th century, but destroyed around the 11th century.
Its existence was known from Byzantine literature, but the location was a mystery until 1992 when a bulldozer dug into a mosaic floor buried in an olive grove during widening of the Jerusalem-Hebron highway.
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