Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Virgin

The Greek Catholic community of Aleppo began to raise funds to construct their own church in the 1820s. The construction of the compound, including the church as well as the residence of the archbishop and clergy, took place from 1834 to 1843. During the events of 1850, the cathedral and adjacent building were partly destroyed and had to be restored.[1] The Greek Catholics profited earliest in terms of new adherents, drifting from Orthodox to Catholic versions of the Melkite church. The size of the church thus reflects its status by the 1840s when rising prosperity among Syria’s Catholic communities was reflected in the ambitious scale of the new project. It is again an example of a church paying tribute to traditional Syrian architectural norms. During the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) restrictions on the building of new churches were lifted. Perhaps the cathedral’s most remarkable feature is its superb marble iconostasis (Fig. 16), an extraordinary cascade of shapes and flourishes separating the apse from the nave.

Site and urban network

The cluster of churches seen by Della Valle still lies at the heart of the Judayda Quarter, though some have changed hands or dedications over the centuries. Little remains of their original structures above ground level. Earthquakes may have caused earlier buildings to collapse and some suffered serious damage in Aleppo’s anti-Christian disturbances in1850.

Layout plan

We have no firm indications of the layout of the original churches or chapels as all buildings were later rebuilt or massively redeveloped.

Functional modifications

Virtually none of the early churches exist today in the form first constructed. We also have little information on how changes were introduced until the buildings took their existing form in the last century.

Architectural and historical importance

Though there has been virtually no systematic attention given to the evolution of Christian architecture in Aleppo, the sample provided at Judayda would give considerable insight into the development of a “Syrian” church style. This drew particularly on elements of Mamluk architecture, cleverly adapting the traditional Christian “basilica” format using elements including “banded stone” in contrasting colour, bold sweeping arches, muqarnas as a decorative theme, soaring domes above the crossing.

Social and economic importance

Della Valle was not the only Italian to visit Judayda. Other European residents and travellers, however, rarely spent much time describing what they saw outside the walls during their trading or hunting expeditions. An exception was the Italian traveller Ambrosio Bembo, who spent fifteen months in Aleppo in 1671-3 visiting his cousin, one of the members of the Venetian community. Bembo made an excursion to the “Borgio Giudaido”, mainly for the purpose of “seeing the ceremonies of their Mass” but left no descriptions of the individual buildings. At the Maronite church he noted that the rite followed the practice of the Roman Church but he noted it was conducted not in Latin but in “Chaldean”.[2]

Current situation

Severe damage has been reported during the recent conflict, principally as a result of up to five tunnel bombs in the area of Hatab Square. Virtually all buildings in the immediate environs of the square were destroyed or seriously affected by tunnel bombs whose effects reached as far as the Maronite Cathedral. Other patterns of damage are noted in the individual church descriptions above.