CHURCH OF ST. PETER IN GALLICANTU

A modern church dominates the eastern slope of Mount Sion, St Peter at the Crowning of the Cock. It enshrines most interesting rock-cut structures, cellars, cisterns, stables, dating to the Herodian period (37 BC-AD70). Beside it runs the ancient stepped way from the top of the hill to Siloam; from the belvedere uphill from the church there is a magnificent view of the City of David, and of the three valleys which shaped Jerusalem. Where the Hinnom Valley joins the others note the Greek Orthodox monastery of St Onuphrius, an Egyptian hermit famous for the length of his beard which was his only garment! To its right is the ruin of a vaulted medieval charnel house near a series of kokhim graves cut into the low cliff. This is the traditional site of Aceldama.

Some Christians venerate the site as the house of the high priest Caiaphas to which Jesus was taken after his arrest (Mark 14:53) and where Peter denied him (Mark 14:66-72). Enough traces have been found to demonstrate the existence of a monastic church of the C6 which a very late document identifies as the place where Peter went after his betrayal; ‘he went out and wept bitterly’ (Matt. 26:75). The same text places Jesus’ confrontation with Caiaphas, and Peter’s denial, in the immediate vicinity of the church of Sion. It is much more likely that the house of the high priest was at the top of the hill; luxurious houses of the Herodian period have been found in the Armenian property (just beside the Dormition Abbey) where another house of Caiaphas is exhibited.

Source: The Holy Land by Jerome Murphy- O’Connor