View source for Greek Orthodox Church of Saint John the Baptist, Jerusalem

{{Short description|Eastern Orthodox church in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem}}
{{Distinguish|Church of Saint John the Baptist, Ein Karem}}

{{Infobox religious building
|building_name         = Church of Saint John the Baptist
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|image                 = File:Church of John the Baptist, Old City of Jerusalem (01).jpg
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|map_type              = Jerusalem
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|location              = [[Jerusalem]]
|coordinates           = {{coord|31.7769|35.2294|display=title,inline}}
|religious_affiliation = [[Christianity|Christian]]
|sect                  = [[Greek Orthodox]]
|rite= 
|state=
|territory             = [[Christian Quarter]] of the [[Old City of Jerusalem]]
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The '''Church of Saint John the Baptist''' ({{langx|he|כנסיית יוחנן המטביל}}) is a small [[Greek Orthodox]] church in the [[Muristan]] area of the [[Christian Quarter]] of [[Jerusalem]]. In its current form, most of the above-ground church dates to the 11th century, and the crypt to the Late Roman or Byzantine period (between ca. AD 324 and 500).

==History==
===Byzantine period===
The first structure, a north-south oriented [[Trefoil#Architectural layout|trefoil]] building, was built sometime in the 4th-6th century and served for unknown purposes.<ref name=Humbert>{{cite journal |title= Excavations at Saint John Prodromos, Jerusalem |author= Jean-Baptiste Humbert (École Biblique) |journal=New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region |date=2011 |volume=V |publisher= Israel Antiquities Authority - Jerusalem Region; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; The Jerusalem Development Authority; Moriah – The Jerusalem Development Co. |location= Jerusalem |page=*24-*47 |editor=David Amit |editor2=Guy D. Stiebel |editor3=Orit Peleg-Barkat |url= http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/17.-JB-Humbert-Saint-John-Prodromos.pdf |access-date=16 November 2017}}</ref> It was damaged at the [[Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem|Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614]] and then extensively modified.<ref name=Humbert/> A source can be interpreted to mean that it was restored during the 7th century by [[John the Almoner]], Patriarch of [[Alexandria]].<ref name=Humbert/>

===Medieval period===
By the 11th century the ancient structure had sunk to at least 3 metres beneath the street level, with its doors and windows blocked, and served as a storage place for goods and water.<ref name=Humbert/> During this century, an organisation of [[Amalfi]]tan merchants settled in Jerusalem and acquired the south-west corner of the [[Aelia Capitolina|Hadrianic]] [[Roman forum|forum]], where they established a pilgrim hospice, complete with a hospital and a church.<ref name=Humbert/> The new church was erected above the ancient structure, which became its basement and dictated the tri-[[apse]]d layout of the entire church.<ref name=Humbert/> This church was tended to by [[Benedictine]] monks.<ref name=Humbert/> In 1099, [[Crusades|Crusader]] knights injured during the [[Siege of Jerusalem (1099)|siege of Jerusalem]] were treated at the hospital and after recovering started here what was to become the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, named after the church, also known as the [[Knights Hospitaller]].<ref name=Humbert/> After the [[Siege of Jerusalem (1187)|capture of Jerusalem]] by [[Saladin]] in 1187, the basement was apparently filled with debris.<ref name=Sacred>{{cite web |title=Church of John the Baptist, Jerusalem |publisher= Sacred-Destinations.com |url= http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-church-of-st-john-the-baptist |access-date= 16 November 2017}}</ref>

===Ottoman period===
At the end of the 15th century, the [[Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem]] acquired the church and most probably transformed the basement into a chapel, which, according to excavator [[Jean-Baptiste Humbert]] of the [[École Biblique]], might well constitute the first time that the structure was used for a cultic purpose.<ref name=Humbert/> During the 16th century, the church was used for a short period as a [[mosque]], but was soon recovered by the Greek Orthodox, who in 1660 built a large pilgrim hospice next to it.<ref name=Sacred/> In the 19th century, the crypt was cleared out, and an impressive reliquary was brought to light from the masonry of the altar.<ref name=Sacred/>

==Original purpose of the building==
===Scholarly view===
The long-held opinion that the original Late Roman or Byzantine structure was built as a church, relies in part on [[John Rufus]] (born c. AD 450), who in his ''Plérophories'' possibly refers to a church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, in existence in Jerusalem during the 6th century.<ref name=Humbert/> Byzantine sources refer to a shrine in the western part of Jerusalem that was holding relics of the Baptist's head.<ref name=Humbert/> There is no archaeological or textual proof that the current John the Baptist Church is the church John Rufus or other Byzantine sources might have alluded to.<ref name=Humbert/> The Late Roman building excavated by Humbert in 2010-2011, which became the crypt of the current church, bears no Christian architectural marks, but such were not to be expected either during the 4th-6th centuries, when church architecture was still following Roman pre-Christian layouts.<ref name=Humbert/> Humbert allows for the possibility that a shrine dedicated to the head of the Baptist might not have served eucharistic liturgical purposes, and thus have had an unusual layout; or that an originally secular building may have been rededicated as a church.<ref name=Humbert/> He also suggests that a restoration of a church in this area by Saint John the Almoner after 614 may have led to a later confusion and an association of the later, medieval church, with the more revered Saint John, namely the Baptist.<ref name=Humbert/> The fact that the pilgrim hospice built in this same area by [[Charles the Great]] in ca. 800 was always mentioned as Saint Mary, not Saint John, indicates though that the connection with the Baptist is of later date.<ref name=Humbert/>

Be it as it may, at the arrival of the Amalfitans in the 11th century this tradition already existed, and they dedicated their new church, to which the ancient structure served as the basement, to St John the Baptist.<ref name=Humbert/>

Humbert proposes that the initial structure was used for the first time for ritual purposes by the Greek Orthodox, in the 19th century, as an underground chapel beneath the 11th-century church.<ref name=Humbert/>

Humbert does not dismiss the possibility that the ancient structure might have been erected as a secular building by [[Constantine the Great]], or as a Christian shrine or church by either [[Aelia Eudocia|Eudoсia]] (as suggested by Byzantine sources), even more likely by [[Justinian]], or by [[Anastasius I Dicorus|Anastasius]], who had built a church dedicated to the Baptist at the [[Jordan River]] around the year 500.<ref name=Humbert/>

===Traditional view===
The traditional view holds that the ancient building was already founded as a church in 450-460 by Empress Eudoсia and restored after the [[Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem|destruction by Persians]] in 614.

According to one Greek Orthodox tradition, the head of St. [[John the Baptist]] was held in this church.<ref>[http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/StJohntheBaptist.html St. John the Baptist, Christian quarter], BibleWalks</ref>

==Archaeological investigation==
The medieval church and the Late Roman or Byzantine structure which serves as its crypt were surveyed and excavated several times.
* 1914 and 1919: [[Louis-Hugues Vincent|H. Vincent]] and [[:fr:Félix-Marie Abel|F. Abel]] documented the site<ref name=Humbert/>
* 2010-2011: the Late Roman structure was excavated by Jean-Baptiste Humbert before being renovated by the Greek Orthodox<ref name=Humbert/>

==Description==
The upper church has 3 [[apse]]s and a long [[narthex]], its dome is supported by 4 pillars.<ref name=Sacred/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Sovereign Military Order of Malta}}
{{Jerusalem Old City}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Eastern Orthodox church buildings in Jerusalem|JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:5th-century churches|Jerusalem JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:11th-century Eastern Orthodox church buildings|Jerusalem JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:11th-century Roman Catholic church buildings|Jerusalem JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:Church buildings of the Knights Hospitaller|Jerusalem JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:Church buildings with domes|Jerusalem JohnBaptist]]
[[Category:Christian Quarter]]
[[Category:Greek Orthodoxy in Palestine]]
[[Category:Greek Orthodox churches in Israel]]
[[Category:Churches dedicated to John the Baptist|Jerusalem, Greek Orthodox Church of St John the Baptist]]