The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes (also known as the Church of the Multiplication) is a church in Tabgha (ancient Heptapegon) on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The church is modern but stands on the site of 4th and 5th-century churches. It preserves a splendid early Christian mosaic as well as the traditional stone on which the miraculous meal was laid.
PERSONAL NOTES
Feeding of 5,000 people took tremendous logistics in modern times, not counting women and children on top of 5,000 written in the Gospel. It may require $100K+ in funding raising of 6 months in my parish. At a moment in time five thousand people got fed before the evening, at this solitary place nearby Jesus’ praying place by the Sea of Galille, Mat 14:13-27 after the feeding. Jesus left the place going out to the Sea of Galilee thereafter, and walked on water at the fourth watch of the night. The feeding miracle happened again to 4,000 people by the Sea of Galilee, Mat 15:29-39, not of any specific location of the seashore. Only Jesus can do this, much as the spoken words, logos, then the universe was created! God speaks and things happened.
We returned to this church in the morning, after staying an additional final night in Nazareth, since the church closed its door after certain hours, 5pm on the day before. In the church under the altar was the rock and the fish and loave mosaic where the miracle took place as a reminder of Jesus standing location and the wonders of loaves and breads took place.
IN THE BIBLE
The miraculous feeding of five thousand people is described in Mark 6:30-44, just before Jesus walks on water. The Gospel account of the loaves and fishes does not specify where it took place; only that it was in a "remote place" (6:32,35) on the shores of Galilee.
According to Mark's account, Jesus and his disciples had gone out in a boat to this remote place for some peace and quiet, but the crowds ran ahead "from all the towns" and met him when he landed. By then it was dinnertime and they were not in a village where food could easily be bought, so Jesus fed them all by miraculously multiplying his disciples' five loaves and two fishes.
AUTHENTICITY
It is possible that this is the actual site of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, but not terribly likely. Scholar Jerome Murphy O'Connor attributes the selection of the site to pilgrims' associations with the area:
HISTORY of THE CHURCH
A church of the Feeding of the Five Thousand was first built on this site in c.350. The church was small (15.5m x 9.5m) and on a slightly different orientation than the later versions. The Spanish pilgrim Egeria visited this church in the 380s, and reported:
The church was significantly enlarged around 480 — an inscription attributes its building to the patriarch Matryrios (478-86) — which included the addition of the splendid floor mosaic. The mosaics were repaired in the 6th century and the church was destroyed around 685 AD.
The site was bought by the Deutsche Verien vom Heilige Lande and excavated in 1932; a protective cover was built over the mosaics in 1936. In 1982 this was replaced by the modern Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes that stands today, which is a faithful reconstruction of the original.
WHAT TO SEE
Under the altar table is a block of limestone, 1 x 0.6 x 0.14m, venerated as the Table of The Lord. This is unlikely to be the same one Egeria saw in the 4th century, and of course pilgrims are no longer permitted to chip away at it! In front of the altar is a lovely restored mosaic of two fish flanking a basket of loaves.
Besides its sacred importance as the place of a miracle of Jesus, the main highlight of the Church of the Loaves and Fishes is this beautiful 5th-century figurative mosaic floor. It is the earliest known example of a
