Cathedral of St. George

About

The Cathedral of St. George is one of the masterpieces of church architecture in its time. It is the first Orthodox historical monument in Lebanon and comes right after the Mariamite Church in Damascus, where the Patriarchal Patriarchate is located. The church, considered the largest historic church in Tripoli, is located in the Christian Quarter in the district of Dabbagh, near the Church Street on the dividing line between old Tripoli and modern Tripoli. The church is built on the 800-square-meter Orthodox cross-section of the church, topped by a 15-meter dome. Used in the construction of sandstone such as most of the historic buildings in Old Tripoli. The façade is dominated by a huge marble portal that is a sign of luxury and beauty with its distinctive engravings and decorations. The dome of the church was larger but it cracked and fell more than once until it was reduced to the dome in the early 20th century. The church has two side entrances and two inner walls leading to a second floor above the vaults overlooking the main church hall. From here the women entered and ascended to the top where the church separated men and women in prayer.Construction of St. George's Cathedral for Orthodox Romanism began in Tripoli in 1863 and took ten years to build. The top of the church's door is a writing bearing the date of its construction and the name of its builder Sophronius. The iconostas, the iconic wall in the churches, was built of wood, until it was replaced in 1900 with abbey marble. It is said that the young men of the community ate from the port of Tripoli to the church building for a distance of four kilometers to transfer the marble pieces from hand to hand to the church. The Iconostas in the Cathedral of St. Georges of two layers, the first with large icons dating back to the period of construction of the church, each icon bears the name of the family donated by Tripoli. The upper second layer carries smaller icons as a gift from the Russian Church. Behind the Iconostas there are three structures indicating the enormity of the church, where few churches contain three structures. In front of the middle temple are two huge wooden chairs (one larger than the other a sign of importance), high on the ground, on the right dedicated to the patriarch of the community and on the left to the bishop. Besides, the Orthodox Church's relationship with the Russian and Greek churches is characterized by two distinct wooden chairs on the right and left dedicated to the Russian Consul and the Greek Consul. In this cathedral there is a magnificence of icons, engravings and artistic decoration.