Forty Martyrs Cathedral, Homs

A Greek Orthodox cathedral in the old city of Homs, and the seat of the Greek Orthodox archbishop of the city. It is named for forty soldiers killed at Sebaste.

Who the forty were

Forty soldiers of the Roman army refused to give up their faith and were left to die on a frozen lake at Sebaste in 320. Sebaste is today’s Sivas, in Turkey. The Eastern churches keep their feast on 9 March, and the date carries extra weight because it falls inside Great Lent. The Armenian cathedral in Aleppo is dedicated to the same forty men; two separate cathedrals in Syria carry the name.

How old it is

The Flemish traveller Joos van Ghistele, writing in the 15th century, mentions a “beautiful church dedicated to the Forty Martyrs” in Homs. A church of that name has stood in the city at least since then. In what year the present building went up is not clear in the sources available. By 1914 a large bell had been sent from Russia for the church — a surviving trace of the ties Orthodox communities in Syria kept with Russia in those years.

What to see

The doorway. A portal built of the black basalt of Homs; above the arch a white stone panel carries an Arabic inscription inside a flowered border, and at the very top a cross sits in a round medallion. The voussoirs of the arch are cut in a zigzag, so the pattern shifts as the shadow turns. Setting white stone on black basalt this way is the local craft; you meet the same pairing in the mosques of the city as well as its churches.

Visiting

Open to visitors outside services, though the hours are not fixed. This part of the old city was badly damaged in the war and repairs ran over years; if the door is shut, asking in the courtyard is usually enough. It is a place of worship: cover shoulders and knees, and do not photograph during a service. The Umm al-Zunnar Church is in the same old city, within walking distance.