Church of Umm Al-Znar, world’s oldest Church in Syria

The Church of Umm Al-Znar is one of the oldest churches in the world. Its official name is the Cathedral of Our Lady Umm Al-Zannar it is located in the Governorate of Homs in the Hamidiyah region of Syria. It is a rich historic, first-century church and is named because of the presence of the Virgin Mary’s robe preserved there.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the Umm Al-Znar church was the headquarters of the Patriarchate of Antioch and the rest of the East for the Orthodox Syrians, and after the transfer of the Patriarist chair to Damascus, the capital, the headquarters of the Diocese of Homs and its mother-in-law for the Orthodox Syrian.

The parrot church was built back in 59, and it was more like an underground cellar where worship was done in secret under pagan Roman rule by Elijah, one of the seventy disciples of Christ;
After Homs became the diocesan headquarters, the church served as the diocese chair and its first bishop, Sloans, held for nearly four decades until he died in 312.

After the release of Milano in 313, the Christians of Homs began to build a large church above the old church dug underground and used black hummus stone to build the church with wood. Still, we do not have enough information about its length, width, and to which it was transported the holy flame preserved in a metal vessel and a basaltic horn, either the bell column or The jersey was built in the 6th or 7th centuries.

According to Christian tradition, the zinnar belonged to St. Thomas, which he was transported to India and stayed there for four centuries when he was transferred to Rha with the remains of St. Thomas, from which he went to Homs in the year 476, as a monk called Father David Al-Toraabdini came to the church with the zinnar and preserved the zinnar in the church and named the church a percentage For the penises.