The Maronite Cathedral of Saint Anthony, Damascus

Walk south from the Bab Touma gate and you are on Deir Street, Monastery Street. The Maronite cathedral of Damascus is on the north side, the Franciscan Latin monastery on the south, the two facing each other. This is the densest hundred metres in the quarter. The cathedral is also the seat of the Maronite archeparchy of Damascus.

Getting there

Turn south from Bab Touma square and walk two hundred metres. Deir Street is narrow and walled high on both sides. Watch the north face for the door. The Franciscan monastery gate opposite is larger and more obvious, which is why most visitors find the monastery and walk past the cathedral.

What to see

Look up before you go in. Above the church door is a poem dated 1865. A building that writes its own date on its front is not a common thing in the old city. Two monuments stand in the courtyard, one to Saint Rita and one to Anthony of Padua. The second was put up in 1959, roughly a century after the church itself. The compound is more than a church courtyard: the archbishop’s offices are here too.

How long the Maronites have been in Damascus

The first Maronite bishop in Damascus was appointed in 1523 and the archeparchy was founded in 1527. The community’s first church stood until 1616. On 9 July 1860, during the massacre in the Christian quarter, many Maronites took refuge in the Franciscan monastery across the street. The present church opened four years after that day, in 1864, first as the Church of the Assumption of Mary; Anthony of Padua became its patron later. The archeparchy counted more than 20,000 members in 2013.

Recent years

After 2013, mortar rounds fired from Eastern Ghouta hit this building more often than any other church in the quarter. On 8 January 2018 a bomb exploded in the bedroom of Archbishop Samir Nassar; he was in another room and was unhurt. Repairs continue. The church keeps its services.

What not to miss

The 1865 poem above the door. You can read it without going in, and those lines also explain why the church opened under Mary’s name. Many of the people who come to the Saint Rita monument in the courtyard are not Maronite; every church in the quarter leaves candles there.