Birthplace of St. Peter FOUND: A 1,500-year-old Mosaic found with a prayer to ‘the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles’ suggests a town in northern Israel is the lost biblical city of Bethsaida – which was the disciple’s childhood home

Archeologists excavating the ruins of a 1st-century church in northern Israel uncovered a mosaic with an inscription in ancient Greek

The team translated the text to discover it is a prayer to Peter the Apostles, which suggests the church was built to commemorate his home in what was the city of Bethsaida

The dedication is a prayer for intercession to ‘the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles’  

…Steven Notley, an archaeologists with Nyack College in New York, said in a statement: ‘This discovery is our strongest indicator that Peter had a special association with the basilica, and it was likely dedicated to him.

‘Since Byzantine Christian tradition routinely identified Peter’s home in Bethsaida, and not in Capernaum as is often thought today, it seems likely that the basilica commemorates his house.’

The ruins of the church also fit the account of Saint Willibald, a native of England and the Bavarian bishop of Eichstaett, who visited the area around 725 AD during a pilgrimage and said that a church at Bethsaida had been built on the site of Peter and Andrew’s home.

He reported: ‘And thence they went to Bethsaida, the residence of Peter and Andrew, where there is now a church on the site of their house.’

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