Theodosius the Pilgrim was a 6th-century German archdeacon who wrote De situ terrae sanctae (On the Topography of the Holy Land), an influential guide for pilgrims to Jerusalem and beyond, describing routes, holy sites like Bethany Beyond the Jordan and the Mount of Olives, and constructions by Emperor Anastasius. His detailed work, written around 518-530 AD, blends an itinerarium (travel guide) with religious commentary, helping pilgrims navigate and identify sacred spots, and even mentions monasteries and miracles, providing valuable archaeological clues for sites. There he wrote the following:
"Three miles from the city of Jerusalem is the place where our Lady Mary, the Mother of the Lord, during her journey to Bethlehem, dismounted from the donkey, sat on the stone of a rock and blessed it."
The site described is in fact known to be the earliest centre of the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Palestine, known as the Kathisma church, which by the early fifth century had become a focus of Marian piety. The Church of the Kathisma marks the place she felt labor pains before Jesus' birth, as described in ancient texts like the Protoevangelium of James. It is called Kathisma because it contains the "Seat" of the Virgin, where she sat to rest.
This church, which became a monastery under the supervision of Saint Theodosios the Coenobiarch, was destroyed over the centuries by conquerors. However, the rock, the so-called Kathisma of the Theotokos, survives to this day in the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, in the city of Beit Jala, west of Bethlehem, approximately 3-4 kilometers away.
"Three miles from the city of Jerusalem is the place where our Lady Mary, the Mother of the Lord, during her journey to Bethlehem, dismounted from the donkey, sat on the stone of a rock and blessed it."
The site described is in fact known to be the earliest centre of the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Palestine, known as the Kathisma church, which by the early fifth century had become a focus of Marian piety. The Church of the Kathisma marks the place she felt labor pains before Jesus' birth, as described in ancient texts like the Protoevangelium of James. It is called Kathisma because it contains the "Seat" of the Virgin, where she sat to rest.
This church, which became a monastery under the supervision of Saint Theodosios the Coenobiarch, was destroyed over the centuries by conquerors. However, the rock, the so-called Kathisma of the Theotokos, survives to this day in the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, in the city of Beit Jala, west of Bethlehem, approximately 3-4 kilometers away.
History of the Kathisma of the Theotokos
The first explicit notice of a church built to commemorate this tradition comes only from two related lives of Theodosios the Coenobite composed in the mid‐sixth century by Theodore of Petra and Cyril of Scythopolis. These Vitae both describe the generosity of a woman named Ikelia, a governor's wife and later a deaconess, who during the reign of Juvenal financed the construction of a church dedicated to Mary on this spot, sometime around the year 450. According to Theodore's account, the monk Theodosios was sent by his superior to live at the church known as the Old Kathisma, which lay along the main Jerusalem–Bethlehem road. To this Cyril of Scythopolis adds that, after Ikelia's death, the ‘community of pious ascetics’ at the church of the Kathisma elected Theodosios first as their steward (οἰκονόμος) and eventually as the superior (ἡγούμενος) of the monastery. By the mid‐fifth century then, the tradition of Mary's rest along the Jerusalem–Bethlehem road was marked not only by the church of the Kathisma, but also by a monastic community attached to the church.
In 1347, Niccolò da Poggibonsi, an Italian Franciscan, recorded what appears to be the last known sighting of the Kathisma church, or at least, what were presumably some of its remains. In his catalogue of the holy sites of Palestine, the Libro d'Oltramare, Niccolò describes his journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, coming first upon the monastery of Mar Elias, which, he notes, stands midway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the main road, as it still does today. Near this monastery, Niccolò explains, "there was once a church on the plain, about a crossbow's shot toward Jerusalem, but now it is not there, except for some brick pavement, resembling a mosaic." Approximately fifty years later, a Russian pilgrim named Grethinos could only report having seen a rock, two kilometres south of Mar Elias, on which the Virgin Mary had once supposedly sat, when she paused to rest before giving birth nearby, as the apocryphal Protevangelium of James describes the events of the Nativity. By the time of Felix Fabri's famous pilgrimages to the Holy Land, in the late fifteenth century, only the "rocky places" where the tired Virgin once sat to rest remained to be seen. With this it seems that what was once perhaps the most impressive Marian shrine of Palestine had become hidden beneath the earth, a testament, perhaps, to its apocryphal origin.
The remains of the Church of the Seat of Mother of God were discovered accidentally during construction work of Highway 60 in 1992 near Mar Elias Monastery. The course of the highway was shifted to avoid damage to the site, so that the ruins are now just off the road, at the once municipal border between Jerusalem and Bethlehem before 1967. The site was excavated in 1997.
The first explicit notice of a church built to commemorate this tradition comes only from two related lives of Theodosios the Coenobite composed in the mid‐sixth century by Theodore of Petra and Cyril of Scythopolis. These Vitae both describe the generosity of a woman named Ikelia, a governor's wife and later a deaconess, who during the reign of Juvenal financed the construction of a church dedicated to Mary on this spot, sometime around the year 450. According to Theodore's account, the monk Theodosios was sent by his superior to live at the church known as the Old Kathisma, which lay along the main Jerusalem–Bethlehem road. To this Cyril of Scythopolis adds that, after Ikelia's death, the ‘community of pious ascetics’ at the church of the Kathisma elected Theodosios first as their steward (οἰκονόμος) and eventually as the superior (ἡγούμενος) of the monastery. By the mid‐fifth century then, the tradition of Mary's rest along the Jerusalem–Bethlehem road was marked not only by the church of the Kathisma, but also by a monastic community attached to the church.
In 1347, Niccolò da Poggibonsi, an Italian Franciscan, recorded what appears to be the last known sighting of the Kathisma church, or at least, what were presumably some of its remains. In his catalogue of the holy sites of Palestine, the Libro d'Oltramare, Niccolò describes his journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, coming first upon the monastery of Mar Elias, which, he notes, stands midway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the main road, as it still does today. Near this monastery, Niccolò explains, "there was once a church on the plain, about a crossbow's shot toward Jerusalem, but now it is not there, except for some brick pavement, resembling a mosaic." Approximately fifty years later, a Russian pilgrim named Grethinos could only report having seen a rock, two kilometres south of Mar Elias, on which the Virgin Mary had once supposedly sat, when she paused to rest before giving birth nearby, as the apocryphal Protevangelium of James describes the events of the Nativity. By the time of Felix Fabri's famous pilgrimages to the Holy Land, in the late fifteenth century, only the "rocky places" where the tired Virgin once sat to rest remained to be seen. With this it seems that what was once perhaps the most impressive Marian shrine of Palestine had become hidden beneath the earth, a testament, perhaps, to its apocryphal origin.
The remains of the Church of the Seat of Mother of God were discovered accidentally during construction work of Highway 60 in 1992 near Mar Elias Monastery. The course of the highway was shifted to avoid damage to the site, so that the ruins are now just off the road, at the once municipal border between Jerusalem and Bethlehem before 1967. The site was excavated in 1997.
