Saturday, January 21, 2006

THE OLDEST CHURCHES IN THE WORLD
Many vie for the title
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06010078.htm

By Gordon Govier
Special to ASSIST News Service

MADISON, WI (ANS) -- It's been called the Armageddon Church, the Christian ruins found at a prison near Tel Megiddo, one of the world's most famous archaeological sites. Some archaeologists have dated it to the middle of the third century and suggested that it may be the world's oldest church. But whether it really is is the oldest church in the world depends, in part, on how church is defined. And by what maybe revealed by further excavation beneath the building's mosaic floors.

Since the beginning of Christianity dates to the first century--indeed our calendar is tied to the birth of Jesus--there were certainly buildings used for those early gatherings. They may have been Jewish-Christian synagogues, and they may have been built originally as houses, but they were in fact the first churches.

One such building was probably located at what we now know as the Cenacle, the building on Mt. Zion just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Modern visitors see what's called "The Upper Room" on the second floor, and beneath it what's called "The Tomb of David."

Both might seem suspect to those visitors. The "Upper Room" architecture is clearly gothic, dating to the Crusader era. And most Biblical experts say the real Tomb of David was located elsewhere, probably in the oldest part of Jerusalem called The City of David or Silwan.

However, Israeli archaeologist Jacob Pinkerfeld studied the building archaeologically in 1951 as it was being repaired following damage sustained during the Israeli War of Independence. His conclusion was that the building was a first century synagogue, according to a 1990 article in Biblical Archaeology Review by the late Father Bargil Pixner (which is posted online at: http://www.centuryone.org/apostles.html). It's Christian character, according to Pixner, was indicated by its orientation toward the Tomb of Jesus rather than the Temple Mount and by Christian graffiti. Historical tradition says the edifice was rebuilt after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, when Christian believers who had fled the invading Romans, returned to their city. This gathering place of the early church was later called The Church of the Apostles. It is probably the world's oldest church.

On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, just a stone's throw from the synagogue of Capernaum, archaeologists have excavated what they call St. Peter's house. Several layers of church buildings were uncovered, conforming to descriptions by fifth and sixth century pilgrims. Father Stanilao Loffreda, a Franciscan archaeologist, told THE BOOK & THE SPADE radio program that they found large scale changes at the lowest, first century level, consistent with conversion of a house to a church. Once again graffiti also indicated the conversion of the house to a church.

Another ancient church was excavated at Dura Europus, on the west bank of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria. It is dated to around A.D. 245. On the outside it probably looked like a house but inside it had been renovated to create a large meeting space and on its walls were murals depicting Biblical scenes. Nearby is one of the oldest well-preserved synagogues of antiquity, even more renowned for the frescoes on its walls. Dura Europus was discovered by British troops during World War I and excavated after the war.

In Aqaba, Jordan, an excavation by Thomas Parker of the University of North Carolina-Raleigh in the area of the Roman-era city of Ayla revealed a church which he dated to about A.D. 280. It's mud-brick walls may be the earliest known built specifically for the purpose of Christian worship. Parker based his diagnosis on the Christian relics found with human remains in a nearby cemetery, the building's eastern orientation, and the fragments of many glass oil lamps that were used to illuminate the building's interior. The presence of the Bishop of Ayla was noted at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325.

After Constantine's Edict of Milan in AD 313, which allowed Christians to freely meet and worship in public, the construction of churches began across the empire. Some of the first were built under the supervision of Constantine's mother, the Empress Helena, such as the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The church at St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai peninsula also claims to be the oldest continuously used church building in the world.

It's a rich tradition and it offers opportunities for more sensitive archaeological research at a variety of sites, including some which may have yet to be discovered.