Church of the Multiplication

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Courtyard of the cloister

The Church of the Multiplication is a Roman Catholic church in the western part of Tabgha on the northwest bank of the Sea of ​​Galilee and is said to be the place where, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish took place during the feeding of the five thousand ( Mt 14.13-21  EU ).

The current church belongs to the Benedictine priory of Tabgha and was built from 1980 to 1982 in the Byzantine style . Previously there were two previous buildings from the 4th and 5th centuries in the same place. On the morning of June 18, 2015, the atrium of the Church of the Multiplication was badly damaged by arson and 16 Jewish settlers were arrested.

The Benedictine priory belonging to Jerusalem's Dormition Abbey is directly connected to the church . On the site there is also a meeting place for the handicapped and young people and the today's interpretation of the biblical place Dalmanutha . The Primate Chapel and the Tabgha pilgrim house are in the immediate vicinity .

history

In 1889 the Palestine Association of Catholics in Germany acquired the site. The first archaeological investigation began in 1892. Further excavations took place in 1932 and 1936, under the direction of Alfons Maria Schneider and AE Mader on behalf of the Görres Society . In this mosaic floors discovered from the 4th and 5th centuries. By 1936 the mosaics had been exposed and an emergency church was built over them for protection .

The mosaics

Modern altar above the offset rock and the representation of the mosaic from the 5th century with bread and fish
Mosaic in the north-eastern part of the church over the remains of the church building from the 4th century

The entire complex of the Church of the Multiplication was originally designed with mosaics . These mosaics from the second Byzantine building have been preserved. The floor structure initially consists of fist-sized stones on which a layer of coarse gravel mortar ( rudu ) was applied and which was coated with a fine layer of coarse lime mortar. The mosaic cubes are made of limestone in the color spectrum from blue-black to white. Only blue and green are missing. The mosaics come from different time periods. The depictions of water birds and marsh plants in the side aisles and in the transept are of particular artistic quality. The mosaic on the altar is very well-known, showing a basket with four loaves of bread (the fifth loaf is the one used in the Eucharist ) and a fish to the left and right of it. The motif is often found on ceramic souvenirs and postcards for tourists. The stone under the altar is venerated as the place where Jesus is said to have placed the loaves and fish before the multiplication of the bread. The church's mosaics are dated to the middle of the 4th century, the famous bread-and-fish mosaic is the latest to be dated to the beginning of the 5th century.

Today's construction

Today's church building, based on the Byzantine style, with an atrium and narthex in front , was built from 1980 to 1982 by the Cologne architects Anton Goergen and Fritz Baumann on the foundations from the 5th century; in places the old black basalt walls can still be seen. The light-colored limestones for the church come from Taiyiba , a predominantly Christian village on the road from Jericho to Ramallah . The open roof structure comes from Germany and the red tiles from Italy. The portal of the church was designed by the German sculptor Elmar Hillebrand .

On June 17, 2015, the church was arson attacked by sixteen youths, all from Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A monk and a volunteer were slightly injured, and a Hebrew graffiti saying "idolaters must be destroyed" was smeared on the walls. The entrance area was badly damaged, the gate and the southern atrium completely destroyed.

literature

Web links

Commons : Church of the Multiplication  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Report in the FAZ
  2. ↑ German Association of the Holy Land: The German Association of the Holy Land and its possessions (tabgha) on Lake Genesareth with their biblical memories . Bachem, Cologne 1916.
  3. ↑ Article Heptapegon , in Avraham Negev (Ed.): Archäologisches Bibellexikon . Hänssler, Neuhausen, 1991, p. 184.
  4. ↑ Markus Krastl: Tabgha as a memorial for the feeding of the five thousand. Trier 2002, p. 32.
  5. ↑ Margarete Preuss: The church portal as an entrance door to the encounter with God; The Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha received bronze portals . In: Das Heilige Land 118 (1986), p. 19 f.
  6. ↑ Christoph Wolters: The bronze portal of the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha (Israel) . In: Das Münster 40 (1987), pp. 109–112.
  7. ^ Hans-Christian Rössle: After the arson attack on the monastery: sixteen young settlers arrested. June 18, 2015, accessed August 7, 2015 .

Coordinates: 32 ° 52 ′ 24.6 "  N , 35 ° 32 ′ 56"  E