Compound of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jaffa celebrates its 150th anniversary

In the Israeli city of Jaffa, a metochion in the name of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and the righteous Tabitha, belonging to the Russian spiritual mission in the Holy Land, has been operating for a century and a half. These days the courtyard celebrates its 150th anniversary. The solemn service, which took place in the local church on November 7, was led by the head of the Office for Foreign Institutions of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Anthony (Sevryuk), who is currently in the Holy Land as a pilgrim. As RIA Novosti clarifies, the celebration - a divine service with the hierarchal rank and a large procession of the cross - was timed to commemorate St. Tabitha, who in the 1st century AD was buried in the territory where the courtyard is now located.

The Russian courtyard in Jaffa was established in the middle of the century before last, when the Russian pilgrims arriving in Palestine could no longer accommodate the Greek monastery in which they traditionally stayed. For this reason, the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), in 1869 won the right to acquire a land plot in Jaffa, on which the garden and tomb of the righteous Tabitha were located - a place of worship for both local Christians and those who arrived from the whole world of pilgrims. At the initiative of Archimandrite Antonin, archaeological surveys were carried out on the purchased site with the participation of eminent Jerusalem archaeologists - Konrad Schick and Charles Clermont-Gano - which allowed discovering many valuable artifacts that were later transferred to museums.

In 1888, a temple was laid on the territory of the courtyard. At the consecration of the foundation stone in its foundation, there was, in particular, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova, the future Martyr Elizabeth. In 1894, the temple in the name of the apostles Peter and Paul and the righteous Tabitha was consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem Gerasim.

Nowadays, the compound of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jaffa conducts wide charitable activities and receives pilgrims arriving to the Holy Land from Russia and other countries. There is a Sunday school here; in the church of the courtyard, a full annual circle of services is performed.