The Holy Cross Church, Aleppo

An Armenian Catholic church in the Ouroubeh quarter of Aleppo, about half a kilometre north-east of Aziziyah. Its Armenian name is Surp Khach, Holy Cross. From the street it is told apart by its single dome and by the belfry sitting over the entrance. Apartment blocks stand all around: this is not a church in an old quarter but one inside a housing district that filled up at the end of the 20th century. The consecration took place on 24 April 1993, and the date was not chosen at random.

Getting there

About a kilometre and a half north of the citadel, on Holy Bible Street. You can walk from Aziziyah in under ten minutes. Coming from the Old City a taxi or a shared minibus makes more sense, because the streets in between are residential and there is nothing to look at on the way.

What to see

Outside, honey-coloured cut stone. The front has a porch of three arches, a tall arched window above it, and a round rose window above that. The glass is coloured and set in narrow bands. Behind the front rises an octagonal drum under a conical roof, the usual covering in Armenian church architecture. The belfry is not a separate tower; it sits over the entrance like a small pavilion.

Inside is one large space. The piers are faced in marble, a half-dome covers the apse, chandeliers hang from the ceiling and the pews are wooden. An icon of the Virgin stands in the niche behind the altar.

Why 24 April 1993

24 April is the day Armenian communities mark 1915. The Armenian population of Aleppo was largely formed by the migration of those years, and the city’s Armenian quarters, churches and schools took their present shape afterwards. Choosing that day for the consecration wrote the community’s own past into the building’s opening date.

Who built it

Sarkis Balmanougian, an Armenian architect from Aleppo. The plan is kept simple: one nave, one dome, a belfry over the door.

The war years

After the fighting reached Aleppo in 2012, the seat of the Armenian Catholic Archeparchy was moved here for a time, because the archeparchy’s own cathedral was hit by shelling again and again. For several years Holy Cross worked as a parish church and a diocesan seat at once.

What most people miss

The evening lighting. After dark the front and the dome are washed in yellow light, and the mass that disappears among the apartment blocks by day reads clearly from the street. The church faces the road across a narrow garden closed by an iron railing; the far pavement is enough to take the whole front in.