JERUSALEM — If tests confirm that it dates back to between 33 AD to 70 AD, as the archaeologists claim, it would make it the earliest known place of Christian worship by around two hundred years. According to a report in the Jordan Times newspaper, a very early underground church was found beneath the ancient Saint Georgeous Church, which itself dates back to 230 AD, in Rihab, northern Jordan near the Syrian border. ‘We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD,’ Abdul Qader al-Husan, head of Jordan’s Rihab Centre for Archaeological Studies, said. ‘We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians – the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ.’ A mosaic found in the church describes these Christians as ‘the 70 beloved by God and Divine’. Mr Husan said they believed to have fled persecution in Jerusalem and founded churches in northern Jordan. He cited historical sources which suggest they both lived and practised religious rituals in the underground church and only left it after Christianity was embraced by Roman rulers in the fourth century AD. The claim was […]