Jerash, in northern Jordan, offers one of the most complete surviving examples of a provincial Roman city in the eastern Mediterranean. Known in antiquity as Gerasa, it was a member of the Decapolis—a network of ten cities tied to Hellenistic and later Roman administration. The city’s extensive archaeological remains—colonnaded streets, public monuments, temples, theaters, and churches—provide a rare opportunity to trace the transition from pagan urbanism to Christian topography.
Among its most notable structures is a late antique basilica commonly referred to as the “cathedral.” Although the name is conventional and not supported by inscriptional evidence, the building occupies a central position in the Christian reorganization of Jerash’s civic space. Its form and placement suggest a deliberate overlay of new ritual patterns onto the framework of the earlier Roman city.
The origins of Gerasa date to the Hellenistic period, though most visible remains stem from Roman expansion in the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. The city developed according to typical Roman planning principles: a rectilinear street grid, forum, monumental gates, and civic institutions aligned along the cardo maximus and decumanus maximus.
By the 4th century, with Christianity ascendant in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, Gerasa began to be transformed. Temples were abandoned or adapted, and churches were constructed, often using recycled materials from earlier public buildings. This transformation did not erase the city’s Roman past but reinterpreted it within new ritual and communal frameworks.
(Photo credit: Fadi Ahmira)
Located just east of the main colonnaded street and adjacent to the Nymphaeum, the so-called cathedral was built in the late 4th or early 5th century CE. Its plan follows the standard basilical form: three aisles divided by colonnades, with an apse oriented to the east. Excavation suggests it was constructed over the remains of a Roman fountain complex, and fragments of earlier decoration are visible in its reused columns and pavement stones.
To its south is a freestanding baptistery, an octagonal structure with a preserved font and cistern system, indicating the presence of a functioning liturgical complex. The basilica itself would have served as a primary gathering space for Christian worship, though no inscription identifies it as an episcopal seat. Its location and scale suggest it held a leading role within the Christianized city.
The positioning of the cathedral, close to key urban landmarks such as the Tetrapylon and the Nymphaeum, illustrates a pattern found elsewhere in the late Roman world: the Christianization of civic centers through the strategic placement of churches. In Jerash, rather than replacing existing structures, the transformation involved spatial reinterpretation and reuse.
While the original religious significance of the fountain complex remains uncertain, its adaptation into a Christian basilica exemplifies the layered sacrality of the site. This recontextualization was not only architectural but ritual: spaces of public utility were transformed into spaces of liturgical significance.
The so-called cathedral is one of more than a dozen churches excavated in Jerash, most dating from the 5th and 6th centuries. These include the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the Church of Saint Theodore, and the Church of Bishop Marianos, many of which contain well-preserved mosaics and inscriptions.
Together, they form a network of ecclesiastical structures that reshaped the city’s rhythm and usage. While not a pilgrimage center in the formal sense, Jerash became a Christian city in both religious life and architectural expression, until it gradually waned in the early Islamic period due to natural disasters and administrative shifts.
(Visitors in Jerash; Photo credit:Turk Lens)
Jerash is located approximately 50 kilometers north of Amman. The site is managed by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and is accessible to the public year-round. Visitors typically enter through Hadrian’s Arch, built in 129 CE, and follow a route through the hippodrome, Oval Plaza, Cardo Maximus, and on to the temple and church precincts.
The so-called cathedral lies at a crossroads between Roman and Christian Jerash. Though roofless and incomplete, it retains enough architectural clarity to convey its original function. The baptistery, located a short distance away, is one of the best-preserved of its kind in the region.
The cathedral in Jerash exemplifies how sacred space was redefined in late antiquity – not through erasure, but through selective adaptation. Its architecture speaks not of rupture but of negotiation between past and present. While not a site of pilgrimage in the traditional sense, its spatial history offers a quiet narrative of continuity and transformation.
For those walking through Jerash today, the route from the city gate to the basilica presents a sequence of temporal and ideological thresholds. The stones remain static, but the meanings layered upon them continue to shift.