• from Chat GPT 5.1, 15 November 2025
• sources: Universes in Universe – Jerash, Jerash (Wikipedia)

The Church of Bishop Marianos stands just south of the ancient city of Jerash’s monumental core, near the ruined hippodrome. An inscription in its mosaic pavement records that the church was completed in the year 570 CE and that it was built during the episcopate of Bishop Marianos, from whom the building takes its name.

The church belongs to the flourishing ecclesiastical milieu of late antique Gerasa, when numerous small community churches were established alongside larger basilicas. Its modest scale reflects both the demographic character of the district—likely a quarter of artisans living among and within the abandoned structures of the hippodrome—and the wider trend of decentralised Christian building activity in the sixth century.

Architecturally the church consists of a single nave entered from the west, terminating in an eastern apse with a clerical bench. The interior was enriched with geometric mosaic pavements, including a tabula ansata inscription set before the altar. These features situate the church firmly within the provincial Byzantine tradition of the period while also revealing a local community able to commission skilled mosaic work.

Discussion

References

Seismic Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Collapsed Roof (debris included tiles) Collapsed Walls (debris included stones) Debris	Isaiah Church Plan of Jerash. North is to the right. Click on image to open in a new tab Holger Behr - Wikipedia - Public Domain Figure 1 The church and the Deacon's House Click on image to open in a new tab Gawlikowski & Musa (1986) Figure 2 The church of Bishop Marianos Click on image to open in a new tab Gawlikowski & Musa (1986)		"The interior of the church was found filled with stones and tiles marking the destruction that must have been sudden, as can be seen from the small finds discussed later in this report, scattered on the pavement. They prove by the same token that the church remained in use to its end. The reliquary, as well as the chancel screen, the altar and the bishop's throne, were recovered from the rubble shortly after the disaster. The date of this event can be deduced from one particular find: a coin embedded in the chancel pavement in a place where the mosaic was damaged; it could not have found its way there after the abandonment of the church. The coin is a post-reform Umayyad fils, minted between 700–750 A.D." - Gawlikowski & Musa (1986:141)

• Earthquake Archeological Effects chart
  Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)
  
  Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)
  of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Seismic Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description	Intensity
Collapsed Roof (debris included tiles) - displaced walls Collapsed Walls (debris included stones) Debris (from colapsed wllls)	Isaiah Church Plan of Jerash. North is to the right. Click on image to open in a new tab Holger Behr - Wikipedia - Public Domain Figure 1 The church and the Deacon's House Click on image to open in a new tab Gawlikowski & Musa (1986) Figure 2 The church of Bishop Marianos Click on image to open in a new tab Gawlikowski & Musa (1986)		"The interior of the church was found filled with stones and tiles marking the destruction that must have been sudden, as can be seen from the small finds discussed later in this report, scattered on the pavement. They prove by the same token that the church remained in use to its end. The reliquary, as well as the chancel screen, the altar and the bishop's throne, were recovered from the rubble shortly after the disaster. The date of this event can be deduced from one particular find: a coin embedded in the chancel pavement in a place where the mosaic was damaged; it could not have found its way there after the abandonment of the church. The coin is a post-reform Umayyad fils, minted between 700–750 A.D." - Gawlikowski & Musa (1986:141)	VII+ VIII+ VIII+

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VIII (8) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224).