Church of Saint John of Damascus

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The Church of Saint John of Damascus ( Arabic كنيسة القديس يوحنا الدمشقي, DMG Kanīsat al-Qiddīs Yūḥanā ad-Dimašqī ) is a Greek Orthodox church in the center of the old town of the Syrian capital Damascus . It is dedicated to Saint John of Damascus , who lived in the early days of the Damascus Caliphate and whose teachings, written in Greek and Aramaic (Syriac) , are still read in the Greek Orthodox Church to this day.

Location

The church is located in the Christian quarter about 100 m northeast of the also Greek Orthodox Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus and about 200 m north of Straight Street . It stands at the western end of Johannes-von-Damascus-Straße, which runs in a west-east direction (شارع يوحنا الدمشقي, DMG Šāriʿ Yūḥanā ad-Dimašqī ) on its south side at the corner with al-Assieh Alley (حارة الآسية, DMG Ḥārat al-Āsiya ).

history

The Church of St. John of Damascus was built shortly after the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch purchased the property with the permission of the Ottoman authorities in 1856.

Construction

The church is considered to be comparatively modern, but with traditional elements. The floor plan is rectangular. The church has a wooden roof that rests on two rows of vaulted arches, which in turn stand on square columns made of basalt stones. The walls, on the other hand, are partly made of dark basalt and partly of limestone. Windows are in the upper area. The floors are made of stones from marble and granite combined. The wood of the iconostasis was carved by Christian artists from Damascus.

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