Jerash Cathedral

The Jerash Cathedral (Cathedral of St. Theodore) is a large Byzantine church built in the fourth century AD on the site of a previous pagan temple. It stands at a prominent position in the centre of the ancient city between the Oval Plaza and the Temple of Artemis, reached by a monumental staircase from the colonnaded street below.

The cathedral is now ruined — its roof and most of its interior have collapsed over the centuries — but the plan is clear and substantial sections of the mosaic floor survive. The building went through several phases of construction as the city's Christian community grew, and by the sixth century Jerash had at least a dozen churches, making it one of the most Christianised cities of the Byzantine east.

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The Jerash Cathedral was built over a pagan temple precinct in the fourth century AD, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and the city's old religious buildings were repurposed or demolished. The transition from temple to church is visible in the surviving architecture: columns from the original temple were incorporated directly into the cathedral's nave.

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