The Earliest Church Yet

What did the earliest Christian churches look like? Today, Stephen Nichols traces their history and introduces the Megiddo Mosaic, the floor of one of the oldest church buildings ever discovered.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are going to Megiddo in Israel. In 2005 at the Megiddo Prison and Detention Center, they were planning an expansion, and a number of the inmates noticed that there were some kind of ruins that seemed like a site. And of course, the Israeli Antiquities Authority was brought in, and an archeologist was brought in to lead the excavation, and they uncovered what is a fascinating find of huge significance--the Megiddo Mosaic. It is on the floor of the prayer hall of Kfar Othnay, and it was built in 230. We're going to get to it eventually, but to understand the significance of this site and of this moment in church history, let's step back and take a look at the history of churches in the early church.

In the pages of the New Testament, we see house churches. In Colossians, we read about the house in the church of Nympha. We not only have house churches, we have apartment churches. Remember Paul in Acts chapter 20, and he's preaching so long, and this poor guy sitting in the window sill of, as the text tells us, the third story, falls out. And when they get down and find him, he's dead. And Paul raises him back from the dead. And what we can understand and what archeologists and historians tell us is that's very typical of a Roman apartment building. So we have house churches, and we have apartment churches.

A fascinating house church is from Dora Europa, and I think we're going to come back and visit Dora Europa as its own episode. There was a synagogue at Dora Europa. The walls are covered with paintings from stories of biblical times. There's temples there. There's the Temple Bel, and there's the Temple Mithraeum, which is of the Mithras Cult, the mystery cult. And there is the Dora Europa House Church. It has a baptistry in it. It has a scene on the wall depicting women proceeding to the baptistry. It has an image of Christ and Simon Peter walking on the water; image of the healing of the paralytic. These are frescos, ancient frescos, some of the earliest Christian art on the walls of this house church. Again, we'll come back to that church.

And then we move into the 300s. Christianity is legalized, and we have basilicas. The first basilica was by the donation, of course, of Constantine, and it ended up being consecrated in the year 324. It's St. John Lateran Church. The next year, Constantine commissioned the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem itself, and the construction commenced.

In addition to these churches, there were also monasteries. There's the fascinating monastery of St. Anthony in Egypt, in the 350s it was founded. And of course, that's where Athanasius would go when he was being challenged (well, when he was thrown out of his seat of bishop), and he ended up writing a biography of St. Anthony. And there was also the Debre Sina. This was a monastery in Eritrea, and “Debre Sina” means “Mount Sinai.” It dates back to the 300s. There's a monastery of St. Thaddius. This is in the Armenian church in Armenia, surrounded by Turkey and Iran. The oldest, very old Christian tradition, the Armenian Apostolic Church. There's one tradition says that the monastery there goes back to 66 AD, and another tradition says it started in 239.

But again, we have house churches who don't really have churches being built until we get into the 300s. And now we can return to Megiddo. And now we understand the significance of the prayer hall of Kfar Othnay there in Megiddo and this beautiful mosaic because now we can say that in 230 AD, we have a church building. And so this is the earliest church building yet. As this was discovered in 2005, who knows? We might have more discoveries as the years roll on.

Well, join me next week. We will return to the mosaic and take a look at it and look at five things that we find fascinating about it. Well, that's the beginning of our time with the Megiddo Mosaic. We'll look at it again next week. And I'm Steve Nichols and thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.