About the project
St. Mark’s Syrian Church is a 12th century church built on Byzantine foundations over the remains of a 4th Century chapel. According to Syrian Orthodox tradition, the church was chosen by the Apostles to be the first church in Christianity, because the Washing of the Feet and the Last Supper took place here (other traditions hold that the Last Supper took place on Mount Zion.) The church and its convent form the Jerusalem center for Syrian Orthodox Christians (also called Jacobites after the 6th Century founder of the sect, Jacobus Baradaeus). The Jerusalem Foundation supported the purchase of furnishings and equipment for the church’s community club, which was established in 1922, in the 1970s and renovated the club in 1994. It supported restoration and renovation work in 1993, to repair major structural deterioration that had resulted from a collapsed underground plumbing system. Work included construction of mukadem (stone buttresses), stone repairs, cleaning and painting. The Foundation was also involved in the restoration of the Room of the Last Supper.
