Church of St. Gabriel, Nazareth
The Church of St. Gabriel is the Orthodox counterpart to the Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. According to Orthodox tradition, the Virgin Mary first received the news from Gabriel that she would bear the Savior while she was out fetching water. The Orthodox Church of St. Gabriel is therefore located over the spring that fed Mary's Well, the traditional place where Mary fetched water for her household. The Church of St. Gabriel is built over "Mary's Spring," a natural spring that feeds the nearby ancient well known as Mary's Well. There may have been a Byzantine church here by the 6th or 7th century, but the first certain mention of it is by Abbot Daniel in 1106-08. St. Gabriel's Church was probably always an Orthodox church, but there is some historical uncertainty about what happened during the Crusades - a few years following the conquest, Crusader sources mention a Latin priory of St. Gabriel. From the 14th century, the church fell into increasingly bad repair, but there was always access to the chapel containing the sacred spring. The site was owned by the Franciscans and Greek Catholics for some time, but in 1741 the Greek Orthodox community gained permission from Dahir al-Umar to take over the site. In 1750, the Orthodox community built the present church on the south side of the chapel with the spring. The wooden iconostasis was added in 1767.
Size: 5485px × 3600px
Location: Nazareth Israel
Photo credit: © Eyal Nahmias / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: belief, biblical, birth, christ, christianity, church, cross, daytime, destination, district, east, eyal, faith, gabriel, gallili, greek, historic, historical, holy, israel, jesus, land, mary, middle, mideast, nahmias, natzeret, natzrat, nazareth, northern, orthodox, pilgrimage, prayer, religion, sacred, spiritual, st, st., tourism, tourist, travel, virgin, water, worship
