Deir Mar Touma: a Roman Temple Turned Church above Saidnaya

About 2 km north of Saidnaya, at 1500 metres, a small monastery sits on the slope above the Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery. What sets Deir Mar Touma apart from its neighbours is the Roman structure underneath: rooms cut into the rock, basins, presses, and a stone building later turned into a church. It is both a working Christian site and a published archaeological one.

A temple or a tomb?

Two researchers read the building in two ways. Julien Aliquot studied the sanctuaries of the eastern Anti-Lebanon in a work published by Ifpo in 2009. He describes a Roman sanctuary: a parallelogram temenos, or sacred enclosure, of 40-45 by 35-40 metres. Inside it stands a small temple of roughly 15 by 8 metres, with two columns set between the ends of its side walls. His inventory also lists Corinthian capitals, rosettes on the corner pilasters, an altar, and a portico with side rooms along the east edge of the enclosure.

Cetinkaya reads it instead as a house-shaped tomb inside a Roman rock-cut cemetery, and places its conversion into a church most likely in the 5th century. The two readings meet at one point: the Roman building was opened to Christian worship. Aliquot records the changes. The porch in front was walled up, the doors were narrowed, and an apse was added to the long east wall.

An inscription from the site says that a woman named Julia Saadne paid for a building for the sanctuary. The text does not make clear which building it means.

How old is the monastery?

According to Cetinkaya, the church drew hermits over time and became a skete, a monastery where monks live in separate cells and gather for common prayer. Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari, who lived between 1301 and 1349, mentions the monastery. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, drawing on Uspensky’s notes, counts Mar Touma among the small monasteries attached to Our Lady of Saidnaya since 1840 at the latest.

Getting there

From Saidnaya the way leads north, up the slope above the Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery. The Syria Photo Guide site names Mar Touma, together with the Cherubim Monastery, as a walking destination from Saidnaya. No current source describes the state of the path or the road, so ask in town before you set off.

What to see

The church walls still carry the Roman building. The narrowed doors and the apse added to the east wall show how a temple or a tomb was made into a church. The rock-cut rooms, basins, presses and benches around it belong to the everyday use of the site in the Roman period.

What not to miss

The apse on the east wall. The temple’s entrance was on its short side; the apse was added to the long east wall. Seen from outside, this is where the building’s change of direction in its Christian phase is clearest.

Before you go

No verified source gives visiting hours or current access. The site is a working monastery attached to Our Lady of Saidnaya, so the safest course is to confirm the gate and the rules on photography with the monastery in Saidnaya. It fits into one day with the Cherubim Monastery on the mountain above Saidnaya and the Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery in town.