The National Evangelical Church of Aleppo

A small stone-fronted building in the Villat quarter. It belongs to the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and serves the Arabic-speaking Protestant, that is Presbyterian, congregation of Aleppo. This is a separate community from the city’s Armenian Evangelical churches, and the service is in Arabic.

Getting there

Under a hundred metres from the Chaldean Cathedral of Saint Joseph, with the Chaldean metropolitanate on the corner between them. Think of it as the northern end of the church line in Sulaymaniyah.

How long it takes

Twenty-five minutes. The building is small and the hall takes in at a glance; the rest of the time goes on conversation at the door.

What to see

The new building is modest: a columned porch under a triangular pediment, an arched wooden door, arched windows with coloured glass along the side. An iron railing encloses the garden and the whole of it is visible from the street, so you can take the measure of the place without going in. Looking for a monument here would be the wrong approach; this is the newest home of a congregation that has been in the city since the 19th century.

Don’t miss

Reading this entry together with Jdeideh. The congregation had its seat for decades in the Khandaq quarter of Jdeideh, where the church was known as the Khandaq Church, and before that it kept two centres, at Bab al-Faraj and at Khandaq. Counting in the Protestant side of Jdeideh gives a truer picture of the quarter than walking its church courtyard alone.

How it stands now

The congregation founded its permanent church in 1940 in the Khandaq quarter of Jdeideh. In 2012 an armed group planted explosives in the building; the foundations were shattered and the structure came down. Archives hold photographs of it both intact and in ruins. The congregation opened the new building in Villat in 2019 and meets there today.