Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 8, Number 18, DeMotte, Jasper County, 31 March 1938 — Earliest Christian Chapel Moved From Syria to New Haven Fine Arts Gallery [ARTICLE]

Earliest Christian Chapel Moved From Syria to New Haven Fine Arts Gallery

The earliest Christian chapel ever discovered has been moved overseas from Syria and reconstructed in the Yale Gallery of Fine Arts, at New Haven, Conn. The chapel is of extraordinary historic interest, since it dates from the early part of the Third century, whpi Christians worshiped secretly m Rome’s catacombs, in such tiny, concealed rooms as the Syrian chapel. On the walls are paintings, indicating how early Christians pictured such scenes as Christ healing the lame man at Capernaum, Peter attempting to walk on the water and the three Marys at the tomb of Christ. A box-like affair is identified as an early baptismal font. It is roofed by a barrel vault supported by pillars. Yale archeologists who unearthed the chapel in ruins of Dura-on-the-Euphrates, says a writer in the Kansas City Star, trace its history through several generations of use, ending with Dura’s fall in the Persian siege of 256 A. D. The chapel, they explain, first was merely a secluded room in the home of wealthy

Christians, who rhust have offered it as a safe place for worship in time of Christian persecution.. A generation or two later, when the Christian seel had grown stronger and was more, tolerated, the family moved out, lejaving the large and elegant house to the Christian community. The archeologists infer this from finding no trace of 'stove, cistern, or other; household gear. At this time, the rooms were rearranged and walls of the tiny chapel were decorated with their many Biblical paintings. Other rooms in the house were incongruously left adorned with pagan Bacchic friezes. This suggests to the archeologists that taste had changed, or else that final siege of the city in 256 interrupted the renovation.