The Synagogue Church is a small Christian church in the heart of Nazareth known by this name due to a tradition claiming that it the location where the village synagogue stood in Jesus' time. Above its doorway is an embedded sign in Arabic and English: "Synagogue".
The structure is administered by the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
In 570, an Italian visitor described Nazareth's synagogue, and reported that the original Bible was still there, including the bench where Jesus used to sit. [1]
The floor of the Synagogue Church is sunken about 1.5 meters underground, possibly built atop a Crusader church dating from the 12th century.
The church was under the control of the Franciscans until the 18th century, when the ruler Zahir al-Umar passed it to the Greek Catholics. In 1887, the Melkite Greek Catholic parish church of the Annunciation was built adjacent to the Synagogue Church.
According to Christian tradition, the church is built on the ruins of the ancient Nazareth synagogue where Jesus studied and prayed.
Little is known of the years Jesus spent in Nazareth, leading scholars [2] to describe this time as "the hidden life" or "the silent years". It is thus all the more significant for Christian visitors to find a lone place where such silence is broken – the Synagogue Church.
Nazareth is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. In 2022 its population was 78,007. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and commercial center for the Arab citizens of Israel, as well as a center of Arab and Palestinian nationalism. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian. The city also commands immense religious significance, deriving from its status as the hometown of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity and a prophet in Islam.
Myra was a Lycian city, then captured by Ancient Greece and lived under their rule, then the Roman Empire and then the Ottoman in Lycia, which became the small Turkish town of Kale, renamed Demre in 2005, in the present-day Antalya Province of Turkey. It was founded on the river Myros, in the fertile alluvial plain between Alaca Dağ, the Massikytos range and the Aegean Sea.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, also known as the Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the RūmOrthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, is an autocephalous Greek Orthodox church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that originates from the historical Church of Antioch. Headed by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, it considers itself the successor to the Christian community founded in Antioch by the Apostles Peter and Paul. It is one of the largest Christian denominations of the Middle East, alongside the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon.
The Church of Antioch was the first of the five major churches of the early pentarchy in Christianity, with its primary seat in the ancient Greek city of Antioch.
The Nazarenes were an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism. The first use of the term is found in the Acts of the Apostles of the New Testament, where Paul the Apostle is accused of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes before the Roman procurator Antonius Felix at Caesarea Maritima by Tertullus. At that time, the term simply designated followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Hebrew term נוֹצְרִי, and the Arabic term نَصْرَانِي, still do.
Gethsemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem where, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus Christ underwent the Agony in the Garden and was arrested before his crucifixion. It is a place of great resonance in Christianity. There are several small olive groves in church property, all adjacent to each other and identified with biblical Gethsemane.
The wedding at Cana is the name of the story in the Gospel of John at which the first miracle attributed to Jesus takes place.
The Melkite Greek Catholic Church, or Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. Its chief pastor is Patriarch Youssef Absi, headquartered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Dormition in Damascus, Syria. The Melkites, who are Byzantine Rite Catholics, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, formerly part of Syria and now in Turkey, of the 1st century AD, where Christianity was introduced by Saint Peter.
The term Melkite, also written Melchite, refers to various Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite and their members originating in West Asia. The term comes from the common Central Semitic root m-l-k, meaning "royal", referring to the loyalty to the Byzantine emperor. The term acquired religious connotations as denominational designation for those Christians who accepted imperial religious policies, based on Christological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon (451).
The Church of the Annunciation, sometimes also referred to as the Basilica of the Annunciation, is a Catholic church in Nazareth, in northern Israel. It is one of two claimants to the site of the Annunciation – in which angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and announced that she would give birth to Jesus – the other being the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation.
Mary's Well is reputed to be located at the site where, according to one Christian tradition associated with the apocryphal Gospel of James, Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary, mother of Jesus and announced that she would bear the Son of God – an event known as the Annunciation. It has been further associated in the past with episodes from another apocryphal infancy gospel, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
Christianity has been, historically, a Middle Eastern religion with its origin in Judaism. Eastern Christianity refers collectively to the Christian traditions and churches which developed in the Middle East, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Far East, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northeastern Africa and southern India over several centuries of religious antiquity. It is contrasted with Western Christianity, which developed in Western Europe. As a historical definition the term relates to the earliest Christian communities and their long-standing traditions that still exist.
Saliba, also transliterated "Saleeba", or Salibi, also transliterated "Saleeby", is a Christian family name of Arabic origin used in the Levant and Malta. The family name comes from the aramaic (sliba) but also from the Arabic cognate "صليب" (salîb), meaning "cross", a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Jish is a local council in Upper Galilee, located on the northeastern slopes of Mount Meron, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Safed, in Israel's Northern District. In 2022, it had a population of 3,216, which is predominantly Maronite Catholic and Melkite Greek Catholic Christians (63%), with a Sunni Muslim Arab minority.
The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Gabriel, also known as the (Greek) Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, is an Eastern Orthodox church in Nazareth, Israel. It is one of two claimants to the site of the Annunciation - where angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and announced that she would give birth to Jesus - the other being the Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation.
Mensa Christi is a Roman Catholic church located in Nazareth, northern Israel.
The Archeparchy of Beirut and Byblos is a metropolitan eparchy of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church since 1881, an Eastern Catholic church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Located in Lebanon, it includes the cities of Beirut and Byblos, and in terms of population, it is the largest Melkite eparchy in the Middle East. Its current Eparch, Georges Wadih Bacouni, S.M.S.P., was elected in November 2018.
Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Akka is an Eastern Catholic diocese of Melkite Greek Catholic Church, directly subject to the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. Its Cathedral episcopal see is St. Elijah Greek-Melkite Cathedral, in Haifa.
The Greek Catholic Church of the Annunciation is the parish church of the Melkite Greek Catholic community in the city of Nazareth in northern Israel.
The Monastery Saint Claire, also known as the Convent of Mary's Fear and by other names, is a convent of the Poor Clares on Tremor Hill in southern Nazareth, Israel. Established in 1884, it is primarily known for the productive time the now-sainted Charles de Foucauld spent there at the end of the 19th century. Expelled from the Ottoman Empire at the onset of World War I, the nuns of the abbey relocated to Malta, founding a new community there. The Sisters of St Clare returned to Nazareth in 1949 but used newer facilities on 3105 Street on the north slope of Tremor Hill. Their former location beside what is now Paulus HaShishi Street was repaired by the Servants of Charity for use as a special needs school in the 1970s.
