Sebastia, Hidden Treasure of the Samarian Hills

The hills of Samaria in the upper West Bank have seen their share of history.  As the buffer region between the coastal plain and the Jordan Valley from east to west, and the Lower Galilee and the Judean Hills from north to south, it has perpetually been a crossroads of history in the Holy Land.

The city of Nablus, the northern hub of the West Bank and an important center of pilgrimage, is a stop that many Christian pilgrims make if they have an extra day alongside the standard route.  A short distance to the north of the city, within the rocky hillsides, dotted with olive groves, lies the city of Sebastia (also written as Sebastia, and sometimes Sebaste); or rather, two cities of the same name, one alive, and one now a ruin.

Sebastia is held to be the burial place of Saint John the Baptist as well as his father, the Prophet Zachariah. Due to its importance tradition, the city became a Bishop’s seat in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church (even today, with only one Christian family remaining in the city and no functioning church, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem still maintains an Archbishop for the city!). Yet the history of the city extends back even further, as it was, to name a few of its many chapters in history, a pre-Christian Roman settlement also connected to King Herod, a Hellenic settlement made by Alexander the Great, and is also identified as the city of King Omri in the Old Testament, 1st Book of Kings.   

The living town of Sebastia is of modest size and includes a mixture of both modern and ancient buildings.  Almost entirely comprised of Palestinian Muslim families, the mosque is historically and architecturally notable for having originally been a Crusader Cathedral dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, stemming from the era in which the entire region was an important part of the Latin Kingdom in the 11th to 12th century.  In recent years, the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land has worked extensively with and alongside the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to better document, excavate and preserve the great wealth of religious and cultural history from the Ottoman, Islamic, Crusader, and Byzantine eras.  The people of the city are proud keepers of its cultural heritage, and are happy to speak and visit with visitors, as well as to direct them to the ”other” city of Sebastia within walking distance; the archaeological park that includes a famous collonade thoroughfare and an amphitheater from the Roman Era, the surviving base of a Hellenistic tower, and the remnants of a Byzantine Church.  In both locations, some remarkable stonework and masonry have been uncovered and preserved, including a beautiful Roman stone sarcophagus featuring an exquisitely sculpted lion, Byzantine decorative stonework, Crusader crosses, and much more.   

In both the present town of Sebastia and the archaeological ruins, visitors can almost always enjoy the sensation of stepping back into the different eras of time, connecting themselves to the story of Saint John the Baptist, and imagine themselves to be a pilgrim from the time of the Crusades stopping to pray at the Cathedral, or walking through the colonnaded streets in during the era of Herod the Great, free of the crowds of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, but still very much on the pilgrimage trail.  

Be Not Afraid! 

Good Shepherd Travel offers pilgrimages to Sabastia as part of their Holy Land tours. Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, Ireland, and many other destinations are among our most popular programs. For more information on how to begin preparing for a pilgrimage in late 2020 or in 2021, contact Tony AbuAita at Tony@goodshepherdtravel.com.  We will return to pilgrimage – and we hope to see you with us!