16159 - Deir Hajla (Monastery of Gerasimus) - Upper Church

The modern monastery was built in the 12th century CE and restored in the 19th on the remains of the Byzantine complex, the masonry of which is still traceable at the southern and eastern monastic walls. There are the remains of the three aisled basilica (12x24.50 m) or cross-domed church with the semicircular apse between lateral pastophoria and narthex on the western side on the second floor. The cruciform plan might appear during the Middle Byzantine period (the piers and coordinated with them pilasters might be of the same period), when it was mostly popular, with the use of the initial building of the traditional Byzantine basilica. A.M. Schneider supposed, that instead of the Medieval narthex, there was one more bay of the colonnaded basilica (Schneider 1938: 41-3), as in the monastic church of St. Euthimius. The eastern part seems to be close to original or even original. In the northern aisle there are partially preserved Byzantine mosaics. Also there are the remains of the church on the first floor, not so well preserved, but also with three aisles (3 piers in each row) and eastern compartment (the apse and pastophoria were not preserved). Its northern rectangular unit was decorated with the geometric mosaic.  There are two plans of the church available so far. One of them was presented by Conder and Kitchener and it takes into consideration the remains of all periods without differentiation. Schneider had published the remains of the Byzantine upper and lower churches and their anticipated reconstructions according to the architectural and mosaic remains. The architectural details, exhibiting in front of the modern monastery, were never published. Their provenance is not clear, as well as we don't know when they had appeared at the spot, but most probably, the members (both Byzantine and Medieval) were derived from the original monastic building and will be described further in the proper section.