Identification of Early Byzantine Constantinopolitan, Syrian and Roman Church Plans in the Levant and Some Possible Consequences

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Twenty years ago Yoram Tsafrir observed that ‘we are as yet unable to distinguish between buildings belonging to different traditions and sects, for example between the Arian, Nestorian, or Monophysite churches on one hand, and those of the Orthodox on the other’. However Thomas Mathews has identified a T-shaped chancel arrangement in some early churches in Rome that he associates with Ordo Romanus I. He later observed that Early Byzantine churches in Constantinople uniquely had a major entrance to either side of the apse, which he and Robert Taft associate with the Byzantine rite, whereas churches in Syria usually had an inscribed apse with a room to either side of it. This paper examines a group of excavated Early Byzantine basilical churches to determine whether these three distinct church plans can be identified elsewhere, but primarily in the southern Levant. Also, whether churches with each of these ground plans share other characteristics, and how this enhanced knowledge can inform our understanding of the Early Christian Church.