Nabi Yahya Mosque

The St. John's Cathedral is the ruin of a former episcopal church of the Crusaders in Samaria (also: Sebaste / Sebastiya ) in what is now the West Bank. The building is now partly used as a mosque and worship the grave of St. John the Baptist in him.

History

St. John was built by the Crusaders in the 12th century on the site where since Byzantine times, a church for the worship of the place was, at which, according to tradition the place of burial of St. John the Baptist after his execution by Herod Antipas was located.

As the first Latin Bishop of Samaria Baldwin was mentioned in March 1129. Samaria was a suffragan of the archdiocese of Caesarea. In addition to the grave and the grave of John laying of the prophets Elisha and Obadiah was worshiped in the church traditionally. In September 1184 Sultan Saladin appeared with his army before the city, which at first could not be ransomed by the bishop. In June 1187 a nephew of Saladin conquered the city and tortured the bishop, until it told him the location of the cathedral treasury. The bishop and the cathedral chapter was then allowed to escape to Acre. In a document of the year 1188, Pope Clement III. the canons of the chapter, which had meanwhile in Nemours, in his protection.

Already in 1225 reported a Muslim chronicler of a mosque at the grave of John. This fact is due to that the cathedral was not completely wasted at conquest of Samaria.

Building

From the cathedral, which was a three-aisled basilica of seven yokes, graduating from each ship with a semicircular apse, still exist today, the perimeter walls. The last two yokes front of the choir are converted into a mosque since 1892. In the third bay of the nave there is the grave of John. Previously there was a mosque in the two western nave yokes. When remodeling the apses and the remains of vaulting were destroyed.