{"id":720,"date":"2019-06-24T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=720"},"modified":"2019-06-24T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T15:17:14","slug":"oldest-church-existence-researches-may-uncovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/oldest-church-existence-researches-may-uncovered.html","title":{"rendered":"The Oldest Church in Existence? These Researches May Have Uncovered It"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_722\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-722\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-722\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2019\/06\/7591106676_470e398dbe_b-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"isawnyu\/Flickr\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-722\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">isawnyu\/Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A team of archaeologists, led by Dr. Krzysztof Babraj from Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Museum of Archaeology, have discovered what they believe may be one of the oldest Christian churches in Egypt, and possibly the world.<\/p>\n<p>The researches were excavating the ruins of an early Christian basilica which operated from 5th to 8th Century when they found a separate area that dated even further back in time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the last research season, under the floor of the basilica, we encountered a wall\u2019s remains, which turned out to be the outer walls of an even older church,\u201d said Babraj.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is one of the oldest Christian temples discovered in Egypt so far,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The older portion of the church dates back to mid-4th Century, and was destroyed at some point by an earthquake.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, the team was able to discover a burial chapel, a basilica, and the largest collection of ceramic fragments ever found.<\/p>\n<p>The group is hopeful that the site will shed new light on how Christianity spread throughout Egypt and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur discovery is also important because we basically don\u2019t know any remnants of churches from the neighbouring metropolis, Alexandria,\u201d Babraj explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we know how they could look, which is why it is so important to continue our research that we have just begun in the old church.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of archaeologists, led by Dr. Krzysztof Babraj from Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Museum of Archaeology, have discovered what they believe may be one of the oldest Christian churches in Egypt, and possibly the world. The researches were excavating the ruins of an early Christian basilica which operated from 5th to 8th Century when they found a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102,7,140],"tags":[91,393],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology","category-christian-news","category-church","tag-archaeology","tag-dr-krzysztof-babraj"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Oldest Church in Existence? 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