Chapel of Ananias

Underground 1st-century house-church where tradition says St Paul was baptised

A small underground chapel a few minutes' walk from Bab Sharqi, traditionally the house of Ananias and one of the oldest surviving Christian sites in Syria. You descend down stone steps from the street into a vaulted space with a simple altar, a wall painting of Paul being lowered from the city wall in a basket, and the sense that the building has been here, more or less unchanged, for two thousand years.

A Franciscan church above it administers the site. Donations are welcomed. Combine with a walk along Straight Street and through the Christian Quarter to Bab Touma or the Mariamite Cathedral.

things to do sight
A story
Tradition holds that this was the home of Ananias of Damascus, the Christian disciple who restored Paul's sight after his blinding vision on the road to Damascus and baptised him into the new faith. The current building is below the modern street level because the floor of Roman Damascus lay several metres lower than the Old City does today.