1500-year-old church found under Turkish lake

A Byzantine church has been discovered underneath Lake İznik in Bursa, a province known as one of the most significant places in Turkey for Christians, reports Today's Zaman.

The church is assumed to be St Peter's Church, which appears in many different sources of Christian history, although no evidence to support that has yet been found. Mustafa Şahin, chair of Uludağ University's department of archeology, said detailed research is being undertaken by Turkish experts on Byzantine history.

'We will share the findings with the public as soon as we get detailed information,' Şahin said. The church has been named one of the most important sources for research in the area. Very rigorous research is under way right now to help the church come above ground and out of the lake.

According to the information attained so far, the church consists of three corridors and has the layout of a basilica. This kind of construction was generally in vogue during the Roman period and was used in courthouse buildings. In A.D. 313, when Christianity was accepted as the official religion of the empire, practicing Christians started to use the basilica layout for churches as well.

The site extends from east to west and has been determined to be a church building because there is an apsis in the east corner of the building in addition to the fact that basilica floor plans were commonly found in churches, Şahin explained.

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1,500-year-old historic church found under Turkish lake (Today's Zaman)

Byzantine Church Found in Turkish Lake (Archaeology)

“When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.”

I wonder if they practiced baptism by immersion....

Why are you kidding? :-) Byzantine Christians absolutely baptize by immersion (and only by immersion), although their version of "immersion" in the case of adults may not make it to your standards, since they're usually immersing in a large bathtub-like tank in the church, not in a lake or swimming pool.

Here's a video for you (but you have to get approximately to the middle of the video to see the actual "getting wet" part of the baptism).

You point out a real tragedy when truth is the first casualty of dogma - left or right. When we lose the fight for truth nothing else really matters does it?

Thanks for all you do. I appreciate it very much and know that others do too. Your insights and knowledge are invaluable and I’ve shared what I’ve learned with others. Your influence is broader than you might realize.

Turkish experts on Byzantium-—laughable... considering the Muslim Turks have burned bombed looted flooded destroyed every thing Christian they could find including the original Christian inhabitants of Asia Minor. Iznik is really Nicaea where another Basilica was dynamited by the Islamic hordes under Kemal in 1923: The Dormition of the Holy Mother, where the Holy Fathers of the Church wrote the Nicaean Creed in 325 AD.

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