Chapel of Saint Paul (Bab Kisan)
كنيسة القديس بولس (باب كيسان)
A small chapel built into the Old City wall of Damascus, commemorating the biblical account of Saint Paul's escape from the city lowered in a basket through an opening in the wall.
The Chapel of Saint Paul sits at the southeastern edge of the Old City wall of Damascus, near the historic site of Bab Kisan, one of the ancient gates whose visible remains today are limited to a small fragment within the wall. The site is linked to an account in the New Testament (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9), when the Apostle Paul was watched by his opponents after converting to Christianity in Damascus, and his followers helped him escape the city by lowering him at night in a large basket through an opening in the city wall.
The current chapel was built in the early decades of the 20th century to commemorate this historic event. It is a small, architecturally modest chapel compared to Damascus's other old churches, but it carries great symbolic value for Christian visitors from around the world who visit it as part of pilgrimage and religious tourism tours in Damascus.
Sections of the old city wall still standing around the chapel give visitors a chance to picture the ancient historical scene and examine the architectural style of Damascus's walls across different eras.
The Chapel of Saint Paul offers a relatively quiet stop compared to the more crowded landmarks of the Old City, and is well worth a visit for anyone interested in the early Christian history of Bilad al-Sham.
For the visitor
Location: 33.5066, 36.3156 · Open on the map
Photos
Photos: Kocsis Fülöp / Hajdúdorogi Főegyházmegye — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) · Frank Kidner — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
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