HISTORIC RELIGIOUS SITE
Aqaba Church
Aqaba · Early Christian church remains
- Locality
- Aqaba
- Tradition
- Early Christian church remains
- Type of place
- HISTORIC RELIGIOUS SITE
- Coordinates
- 29.53375° N, 34.99906° E
- Identity
- Matched to a public listing
A brief history
Archaeologists unearthed this mud-brick building at Aqaba in 1998 and dated its first phase to between 293 and 303. That makes it the oldest known church built to be a church: older than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, both raised in the late 320s. Standing at the edge of the Roman empire probably saved it, since the Great Persecution broke out a few years after it went up and did not reach this far.
An interesting detail
It was built of mud brick, not stone — which is part of why it survived unnoticed for so long, and why so little of it stands above knee height today.