The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption
The Syriac Catholic cathedral of Aleppo. Badly damaged in the war and reopened in 2018, with 700 square metres of wall painting redone in three months.
- Opening hours
- Service times; otherwise variable — check at the door
- Entry
- Free
- Duration
- 30 minutes
- Best time
- Sunday morning after the service; the facade takes the light before noon
- Period
- Contemporary; the community goes back to the 16th century
- Address
- Beside Mother Teresa Square, north-east of Azizieh, Aleppo
The mother church of Aleppo’s Syriac Catholic community. The present building was completed in 1970 and dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. The cathedral before it was founded in the 16th century in al-Jdayde and served as the seat of the Syriac Catholic patriarchate between the 17th and 19th centuries. That older church still stands and is known today as the Church of Mar Assia al-Hakim.
Getting there
About 400 metres north-east of Azizieh Square; the cathedral is right beside Mother Teresa Square. The stone houses of al-Jdayde lie to the south, at roughly the same distance.
What to see
The building is faced in stone and divided by vertical buttresses, with a ribbed dome above. The grid that fills the centre of the facade is made of rows of stone panels, each carrying a relief motif. It is a modern church, but the material and the colour come from Aleppo’s own stone.
What remains
The cathedral was badly damaged in the war. It closed in 2012, and even after the fighting ended in 2016 it stayed shut because services could not be held in it. In September 2018 it was reopened and rededicated by the Syriac Catholic patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan.
Don’t miss
The wall paintings. The 700 square metres lost in the war were repainted in three months by the Syrian artists the al-Badawi brothers; it is the largest single artistic project carried out in Aleppo since the war. The mosaics were laid again as well. If you can get in, look up first.
Tips
- If you go in, look at the ceiling and the wall paintings first; that is the real work
- Look closely at the stone panels on the facade, each carries its own relief
- Do not walk in during a service; ask at the door which hours are open
Transparency
- How this was chosen
- Written by hand; opening hours, entry fee and coordinates are kept as data. A field that is not known for certain is marked as variable rather than guessed.
- Facts checked
- September 2026
- Last updated
- September 15, 2026