Soufanieh, Damascus

North of Bab Touma lies the quarter of Soufanieh Street and the lanes running off it towards Qassaa; the name belongs to both the district and the street. In a house here, apparitions of the Virgin were reported in December 1982 and then in January, February and March 1983. The house has been visited ever since and it keeps its own website. Every church on this site is built of stone. This is a house, and it is the address through which the living — not museum — Christian life of Bab Touma can be seen.

Getting there

Walk north from Bab Touma towards Qassaa; Soufanieh Street is on that way, and the quarter takes its name from the street. This is the belt of transition between the Christian quarter of the old city and Qassaa outside the walls. The Chapel of Saint Ananias and Bab Touma are within walking distance and fold into the same circuit.

How long it takes

Half an hour. The house is not a large space: the wall where the icon hangs, candles, flowers, and the people standing in front of them. This is a short stop rather than a tour, and on busy days there can be a queue. Ask first about times and how entry works — no regular visiting hour has been announced.

What was reported

According to the accounts, oil flowed from the Marian icon in the house and from the face and hands of Myrna Nazzour. The journalist Brigid Keenan wrote that the oil was analysed and proved to be olive oil, one hundred per cent. Hundreds of people, among them doctors and psychiatrists, watched what happened and found no trick. Nazzour described stigmata on her forehead, hands, feet and side, said the Virgin appeared to her outside the house, and reported being told that Christians should pray for peace, love one another and pray for the unity of the churches. This page passes no judgement on the events; it reports what was reported, as reported.

Where it has been written about

Soufanieh has entered both academic and religious literature. Andreas Bandak treats it in Exemplary Life, University of Toronto Press, 2022. Marius Kociejowski writes about it in his travel book The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool, 2004. Elias Zahlawi has entries on it in the Fayard dictionaries. It is a documented file, in other words, not neighbourhood talk.

Do not miss

The street itself. Most visitors go straight into the house and straight out again, when these few hundred metres between Soufanieh Street and Qassaa are where the ordinary daily life of Christian Damascus outside the old walls shows itself.