| Kursi (Decapolis) |
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This is where the cure of the possessed man came to pass. Jesus transferred the evil
spirits from the possessed man to a herd of (2000) swine (Mk. 5, 1 – 20). Situated on the eastern part of the valley, on the declines of the Golan, is the Kursi monastery, which was accidentally discovered after the six days' war, when a road was paved on the east side of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). The excavations revealed a Byzantine monastery, the largest in Israel. In the church, mosaics figuring animals and vegetative ornamentation, partly obliterated, are found. In 1980, a small chapel was discovered on the site, close to a protruding rock. This rock has been sanctified in the Christian tradition, as the place where Jesus met the possessed man. |
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