St. Cleophas Church

The St. Cleophas Church[1] or St. Cleopas Church[2] also called Emmaus Church[3] or the Basilica of St. Cleophas, is a Catholic church located in the village of El Qubeibeh (province of Jerusalem) in the occupied West Bank, Palestine.

St. Cleophas Church
The church in 1936
Location	El Qubeibeh
Country	Palestine
Denomination	Roman Catholic Church

With the Crusaders expelled from the Holy Land, Christians in the following centuries were forbidden to use the main highway from the coastal plain to Jerusalem, denying them access to Abu Ghosh, who was accepted before as the place of Emmaus.

El-Qubeibeh, which had been part of the agricultural domain of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was first suggested as St Luke’s Emmaus in 1280. The village was on a Roman road and in 1099 the Crusaders discovered a Roman fortress there, which became known as Castellum Emmaus.

The site was adopted in 1335 by the Franciscans, who began an annual pilgrimage there. A three-aisled basilica with a vaulted choir and an apse was built on the supposed house of Cleophas.

In the nineteenth century, the church was in ruins. The nave was almost destroyed and there was a wall three meters high instead of the apses. In 1852, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land renewed an annual pilgrimage each month in september. The Marquise Pauline de Nicolay bought the ruins in 1861 and donated them to the Franciscans.

In 1902, Sultan Abdul Hamid II gave permission to the order of the Franciscans to rebuild their church. The temple was awarded the status of minor basilica in 1919.