Synagogue Church

Synagogue Church is a small Christian church in the heart of Nazareth known by this name because above its doorway is an embedded sign: "the synagogue." The structure is currently controlled by the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Its floor is sunken about 1.5 meters underground, possibly built atop a Crusader church dating from the 12th century. The church was under the control of the Franciscan until the 18th century, when the ruler Daher al-Omar passed it to the Greek Catholics.

According to Christian tradition, this church is built on the ruins of the ancient Nazareth synagogue where Jesus studied and prayed. In addition, this is where one Sabbath day Jesus delivered his famous sermon (Matthew 13, Mark 6, Luke 4) based on Isaiah 61, where he declared himself as the Messiah to his Jewish village members. This sermon infuriated the listeners who dragged him to a cliff to throw him over, but he escaped.

Little is known of the years Jesus spent in Nazareth, leading scholars to describe this time as “the silent years.” It is thus all the more significant for Christian visitors to find a lone place where such silence is broken – the Synagogue Church. In 570 an Italian visitor described the synagogue, and reported that the original Bible was still there, including the bench where Jesus used to sit.

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