Church of the Multiplication

Church of the Multiplication tickets: which one to buy

Tabgha sits on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee, a few minutes by road from Capernaum and from the Mount of Beatitudes, and the three are always visited together. Entry is free, though there is a charge for the car park, and dress rules are enforced at the gate with shoulders and knees covered. Organised trips come from Tiberias, Nazareth and Jerusalem, and the Galilee day tours generally allow twenty to thirty minutes here.

That is enough for the church and the shore but not for a quiet hour, which is what the place rewards. Renting a car is the better option in Galilee, since the sites are close together and public transport between them is poor. The Benedictine community that runs the site keeps a garden along the water and asks for silence inside. A second church, marking the same shore, stands a short walk east.

Visiting Church of the Multiplication: what to see

A church was built here about the year 350 beside the lakeside road, enlarged around 480, and destroyed by the Persians in 614, after which the location was lost for some thirteen centuries. A German Catholic society acquired the ground in 1888, surveys began in 1892 and full excavation in 1932, and what came out of it is the reason to visit: the floor mosaics of the fifth-century church, largely intact. They show waterfowl, herons, a flamingo, lotus flowers and a tower marked with water levels, worked in the naturalistic style of Nile landscape scenes and quite unlike later Byzantine mosaic.

In front of the altar a small panel of a basket of loaves between two fish has become the best-known image in Christian Galilee. The present church, completed in the 1980s, was built over the excavation in a restrained reconstruction of the Byzantine plan, with a block of limestone under the altar said to be the stone on which the loaves were laid. A separate chapel on the shore below marks the meal the disciples are said to have eaten after the resurrection.

Church of the Multiplication opening hours and the best time to go

Mornings are the time to come, before the coaches and while the light is soft over the water. The site closes in the early afternoon on some days and for a break at lunch. Spring is the best season in Galilee, with wildflowers on the slopes and comfortable temperatures; summer around the lake is very hot and humid, since the water sits two hundred metres below sea level. Winter is mild and green.

An arson attack in 2015 damaged the buildings and the community rebuilt, so parts of the complex are newer than they look. Christian festivals bring pilgrim groups in numbers, and Jewish holidays fill the Israeli resorts on the lake. The shoreline path beside the church is open and is the best place to sit. Allow half an hour, and an hour if you intend to walk the shore to the next chapel. Swimming is possible from the public beaches a short drive north, and the water stays warm into November.