The Church of Saint George (, , "Church of Saint George the dragonslayer")
in the city of
Lod is a
Greek Orthodox church
Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Christianity in Greece, Greek Christianity, Antiochian Greek Christians, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christian ...
containing a
sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...
venerated as the tomb of the fourth-century Christian
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...
Saint George
Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...
.
The church sits adjacent to the
Great Mosque of Lod.
The church building is based on the partially rebuilt
Crusader-period church,
which had itself been built over part of the remains and footprint of the Byzantine-period predecessor.
[ (pp. 9 ff, se]
915
History
Byzantine establishment
The church of Saint George was first established in Lod by the Byzantines and stood in the 5th-7th centuries.
[ It was probably shaped as a basilica whose three aisles terminated at the east end in semi-circular apses.][ Beside the main church, the complex also contained a second, smaller one just southwest of it.][ The Christian site was destroyed in 614 by the Sasanids during the war which led to them conquering Jerusalem.
The Byzantine basilica may have had just one ]apse
In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...
with two irregular pastophoria (chambers).
Crusader cathedral
The Crusaders established their cathedral at the exact site of the main Byzantine church, reusing some of its surviving masonry, and having the same internal measurements of 47 metres east to west, and 24 metres north to south.[ The three-aisled basilica also terminated in three semi-circular apses, with the second of five bays forming the transept.][ In 1177, a detachment of ]Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
's army attacked the town and the inhabitants survived by taking refuge on the roof of the fortified church, which seems to indicate that by this time it had a stone roof.[
After reconquering the land from the Crusaders in the aftermath of the 1187 Battle of Hattin, Saladin had the cathedral of Lydda and castle of Ramle demolished in 1191.][ The territory around Lydda changed hands repeatedly during the next eight decades, and the state of the church during this time is not clearly documented, with nothing to support the notion that it was rebuilt by Richard the Lionhearted.][ It seems that the Greek Orthodox continued using the still standing eastern part of the church, with the choir and the tomb of St George, possibly along with the smaller buildings southwest of the ruined cathedral.][ In 1266 Lydda fell to the ]Mamluk
Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
sultan Baibars.[ Clermont-Ganneau speculated that the Frankish materials present in secondary use at the nearby Jindas Bridge (1273) were taken from the demolished part of the Lydda church,][ which Adrian Boas sees as part of the wider Mamluk custom of marking the triumph over the Christians by recycling their masonry for their own constructions.
]
Mamluk mosque
During the Mamluk period, the ruined western part of the Crusader church has been converted into a congregational mosque
A congregational mosque or Friday mosque (, ''masjid jāmi‘'', or simply: , ''jāmi‘''; ), or sometimes great mosque or grand mosque (, ''jāmi‘ kabir''; ), is a mosque for hosting the Friday noon prayers known as ''Friday prayer, jumu'ah' ...
, the earliest mention of which comes from the early 15th century. The remains of the smaller Byzantine basilica southwest of the main church, including its apse, were incorporated into the mosque's prayer hall; today a pillar that once stood in the nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
of the basilica remains inside the mosque prayer hall with an inscription in Greek.
The northern façade of the mosque building faces the courtyard (''sahn''), and makes use of the south wall of the Crusader church. The ceiling of the mosque is vaulted and made in the shape of a cross. On the eastern side of the prayer hall remains a remnant of a Byzantine apse. Beneath the mosque are underground halls, built by the Crusaders and used as reservoirs for the church and city residents. The mosque and minaret were mentioned by Felix Fabri in the 1480s:
"The rest of the church has been cut off from the choir by a wall, and they have made that part of it into a fair mosque in honour of Mahomet, and adorned it with a lofty tower. The door stood over against us, so that we could see into the courtyard of the mosque, and into the mosque itself, and it was like Paradise for cleanliness and beauty."Felix Fabri
p.257
19th-century church
The current Church of St. George incorporates only the northeast corner of the original site. During the second part of the nineteenth century, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem received permission from the Ottoman authorities to build a church on the site of the medieval ruins. The 19th-century church was built over the remains of the 12th-century Crusader structure, occupying the east end of its nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and northern aisle, from which the corresponding two apses survive.[
The Ottoman authorities stipulated that part of the church plot be incorporated in the mosque courtyard.] The southern part of the Crusader church dictated the shape of the mosque courtyard.[
The church crypt contains a ]sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...
[ venerated as a symbolic tomb of St George.][
]
Gallery
Combined site
File:Konrad von Grünenberg - Beschreibung der Reise von Konstanz nach Jerusalem - Blatt 33r - 071.jpg, 1487 drawing of ruined church over St George's tomb and Mosque by Konrad von Grünenberg
File:Remains of church of Saint George in Lydda (Lod) - Bruyn Cornelis De - 1714.jpg, 1714 drawing of ruined church over St George's tomb by Cornelis de Bruijn
File:The church of Saint George in Lydda (Lod) - Chrysanthus Of Bursa - 1807.jpg, 1807
File:PikiWiki Israel 68673 st. george church in lod.jpg, 1866 (east end ruins, viewed from the south)
File:57.Ruines a Ludd (Lydde.).jpg, 1857
File:Plan Général des Ruines de l’Eglise St Georges ed de la Mosquée principale de Lydda (Juin 1870).jpg, 1870
File:Mediaeval Church of St. George, Byzantine Church & Mosque (diagram by Charles Clermont-Ganneau).jpg, 1873–74
File:Lydda circa 1910.jpg, 1910
File:St Georges Church Lydda.jpg, c.1920
File:De Grieks-orthodoxe St. Joris kerk (l) en de El Chodr moskee (r) in Lydda (Lod), Bestanddeelnr 255-3108.jpg, 1948–49
File:PikiWiki Israel 84816 mosque to omri lod.jpg, 2022
File:Interior of Saint George church in Lod (03).jpg, Iconostasis
In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis () is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a Church (building), church. ''Iconostasis'' also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere withi ...
and chandelier
File:La tomba di San Giorgio (Lod, Israele) 02.JPG, The symbolic sarcophagus of St George from the crypt
File:La tomba di San Giorgio (Lod, Israele) 04 - particolare del bassorilievo.JPG, Bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
on the sarcophagus
Bibliography
* (pp
102
109)
* (pp
267
8)
* (p
330
* (pp
210
211)
* (pp
4955
See also
* Saint George in devotions, traditions and prayers
* St George's Church (disambiguation)
* St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem, an Anglican church in East Jerusalem
* Monastery of Saint George, al-Khader, a Greek Orthodox monastery near Bethlehem
*Religion in Israel
Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jews, Jewish people. The Israel, State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority pop ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Photos of the Church
at the Manar al-Athar
Manar al-Athar is a photo archive based at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford which aims to provide high-quality open-access images of archaeological sites and buildings. The archive's collection focuses on areas of the Roman Em ...
photo archive
{{Authority control
Saint George (martyr)
Greek Orthodox churches in Israel
Religious buildings and structures in Central District (Israel)
Lod
Churches completed in 1872
1872 establishments in Ottoman Syria