Church of Saint Paul

A brief history

This chapel stands at Bab Kisan, one of the seven ancient gates of Damascus, in the south-east of the Old City. The wall there was built in the Roman period. Acts and Second Corinthians describe Paul escaping the city at night, lowered from a window in the wall in a basket; the chapel commemorates that escape. Which gate it happened at is not settled, and the sources say only that Bab Kisan may have been the place.

An interesting detail

The gate is named after a slave who became known during a conquest under the Caliph Mu'awiya, so its name belongs to Islamic Damascus, not to Paul.