Damascus: Reminders of Christianity in Odd Places
"The Romans built a temple there dedicated to Jupiter...In the fourth century A.D., when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the temple became a church, which was famous for its prized relic—the head of John the Baptist."
REPORTER'S NOTE: I often wonder about the cities and countries mentioned in the Bible: what they are like today, how and why they have changed, if a Christian remnant remains, etc. Damascus, Syria, is one of those places. In my worldview, Damascus will always represent the location of one of the world's greatest transformations outside of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is where the apostle Paul was knocked off his horse and blinded on his way to persecute the region's Christians. Not only was his eyesight restored in Damascus, but he dedicated his life to Christ and it was God's confrontation with Paul on the road to Damascus that opened the door for the penning of much of the New Testament. Damascus may have changed drastically over the centuries, but God's presence remains! -Teresa Neumann, BCN.
(Damascus, Syria)—The history of Damascus is fascinating and not just a little enigmatic. Take, for example, the fact that above a doorway at the exit of the Umayyad Mosque, Syria's most famous monument, is a Greek inscription from Psalm 145 that reads, "Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
According to a Wall Street Journal article, it's common to see people pressed around a domed shrine to John the Baptist, whom Muslims revere as a great prophet. The relic inside, the supposed head of the Baptist, is reportedly the very same one that once belonged in the Byzantine church.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, "the Umayyad Mosque stands in the middle of Damascus's old city, on a site that has been home to religious worship since the second century B.C. The Romans built a temple there dedicated to Jupiter. In the fourth century A.D., when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the temple became a church, which was famous for its prized relic—the head of John the Baptist. In 636, Arab armies seized Damascus, and about three decades later the city became the capital of the fledgling Islamic state, now under the leadership of the Umayyad caliphs. Despite the changing of the guard, the church continued as the center of Christian worship. Indeed, Christians remained in the demographic majority long after the conquest, and many served the new Muslim empire much as they had the Byzantines long before."
Today, the Christians of Damascus, constituting 10% of the population, live in a nearby community called Bab Touma, where they have lived since the 8th century.
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