St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church, Madaba, Jordan, Page - 64

Page - 64
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"St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church"

Madaba

Jordan

Friday, ‎December ‎27, ‎2013

Seventh Day of my Holy Land Trip, Mount Zion, Jerusalem

My Holy Land Trip

"St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church"

Madaba

Jordan

St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church, Madaba, Jordan:

The modern Arab village of Medeba (Madaba) is built on the ruins of biblical Medeba. During construction of the Church of St. George, the beautiful "Madaba Map" was found. This map was originally part of the floor of a Byzantine church, built during the reign of emperor Justinian, AD 527-565. It is the oldest map of the Holy Land that is still extant. Five other Byzantine churches have been discovered in Madaba, all with nice mosaics. This has led to Madaba’s designation as "the city of mosaics."  Madaba is 20 miles (32 km) south of Jordan's capital city of Amman. 

St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church, Madaba, Jordan:

The Pilgrim’s House, a pleasurable hotel located in the center of the Jordanian city of Madaba that is fully owned and operated by the Church of Saint George.  Our establishment not only offers excellent accommodations and services, but also a truly exceptional experience for those interested in visiting some of the world’s most coveted archeological discoveries, one of which is the Church of Saint George itself.

The Pilgrim’s House Hotel, nearby the St George, Madaba, Jordan:

At the heart of this community is the Orthodox Church of St. George. The church broke ground in 1884, when the Greek Orthodox community saved enough funds to start construction. But to the surprise of the builders, under it were the remains of a Byzantine dating back to the 3rd century. It was on the floor of this ancient Greek church that the earliest, most extant map of Palestine was found; it literally put the map on the map. With 157 captions (in Greek) depicting all the major biblical sites of the Middle East, the mosaic constructed in AD 560, was originally around 25m long (some experts claim 15m is more accurate) and 6m wide. 

It once contained more than two million pieces but only one-third of the original mosaic has survived. Next to the church and second in importance to the community is the Greek Orthodox School of St. George. Headed by Father Innokentios, a resident of Jordan for close to 50 years, the school provides a high quality education to both Christian and Muslim students alike. It is ranked among the top ten private school establishments in Jordan and currently has a waiting list of 540 students, of which only one-third have room to be admitted. The school is part of a larger network of schools under the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate which boast 6,000 students in 13 schools, with 800 teaching staff.

Beside the church, on its right is the school and on its left is the office. The church faces a busy commercial street full of carpet stores and carpet weaving shop:

The remains of the oldest known map of the Holy Land, painstakingly assembled from more than a million pieces of colored stone, lie on the floor of a church in the Jordanian city of Madaba.

This unique art treasure was designed by an unknown artist and constructed in a Byzantine cathedral in the middle of the 6th century.

It was rediscovered only in 1884, but its unique character was recognized only in 1896, after the new Greek Orthodox Church of St George had been built over it.

The discovery of the Madaba Mosaic Map, and mosaics in the remains of five more churches and other locations in the town, led to Madaba, 30km south of Amman, becoming known as “the City of Mosaics”.

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

The ruins of Um Al Rasas lie 30 km south-east of Madaba on the edge of the steppe and the town halfway between Dhiban on the Kings' Highway and the Desert Road. The ruins consist of a walled area forming a fortified camp and an open quarter of roughly the same size to the north. the remains of a tower can be seen to the north of the fort, beside ruins of some edifices, stone quarries and water cisterns hewn in the rock.

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

By the middle of the 19th century the mosaic was in poor condition. Restoration and conservation was carried out by archaeologists Herbert Donner and Heinz Cüppers in 1965.

Madaba is now the fifth most populous city in Jordan and the administrative centre for the territory south of Amman. St George’s Church is northwest of the city centre

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

The town was still in ruins and uninhabited in the early 1880s when a group of Christians from Karak, 140km south of Amman, decided to move there to escape conflict with Muslims in their home town.

The new settlers were removing debris from an old church in 1884, so they could build a new one on the site, when they discovered the remains of the map. They incorporated the surviving fragments into the new St George’s Church.

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

The map originally covered an area of more than 15.5 metres by 5.5 metres with a geographic sweep from Lebanon in the north to the Nile delta in the south. Less than a third of the map has survived.

In spite of some inaccuracies, it is regarded as the most exact map of the Holy Land before modern cartography was developed..

Mosaic Map in side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

The map is in the center of the modern church, with the crowds gathered around it in the picture at right.  The current remains are 34.5 ft x 16.5 ft (10.5 m x 5 m, but patchy and not entirely square), only about one-third the original size. There are currently 750,000 cubes remaining. The original size of the map was approximately 51 ft x 19.5 ft (15.5 m x 6 m), although no borders are visible. The map is made of various colors. It has 150 Greek inscriptions in various sizes, and covers the area from Tyre in the north to the Egyptian Delta in the south.

Mosaic Map in side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

Madaba was an important town in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was on the King’s Highway trade route, it had its own bishop and it had several imposing churches with impressive mosaics.

A conservative estimate is that the mosaic map would have originally contained about 1,116,000 pieces of stone and glass. A team of three workmen, working 10-hour days and directed by a superior artist, would have needed about 186 days to assemble it.

In 746, about 200 years after the mosaic map was constructed, Madaba was largely destroyed by an earthquake and subsequently abandoned.

Mosaic Map in side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

The map’s extraordinary value was not recognized until the librarian of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem, Fr Kleopas Koikylides, visited in 1896. A report he published the following year brought international attention to the dusty village of Madaba.

Mosaic Map in side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan:

Um Al Rasas (pronounced "Um Ar Rasas and often spelt this way) has been identified as the site of a Roman garrison town called Kastron Mefaa, which subsequently became a prosperous city during the Byzantine/Omayed period. A very important mosaic was discovered in the Church of St Stephen there, which dates to 785AD or well after the Moslem religion was established in the Middle East. The mosaic depicts beautiful scenes of hunting, agricultural and pastoral life surrounded by a geographical border showing cities of Jordan, Palestine and of Egypt. Sadly much of the centre of the mosaic was destroyed during the iconoclastic period, but the cities remain. A building in the ruins of the church shelters this mosaic which is still in its original place.

In side the St. George Greek orthodox church, Madaba, Jordan: