- Address
1 Mifrats Shlomo, Tel Aviv-Jaffa (Israel) - Web
https://www.cicts.org/en/ - Visiting Hours
Monday to Friday 8am to 11.45am and 3pm to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday 9am to 11.45am and 3pm to 7pm - What to see
Bell tower, stained glass windows
St. Peter’s Temple is a Franciscan Catholic church located in the northwest corner of Old Jaffa. It is named after Saint Peter. According to Catholic tradition, the church stands in the place where Simon the tanner’s house was located, where Peter stayed when he was in Jaffa, and where the miracle of the dream was revealed to him.
In the place where the church stands, there was a Byzantine church that was destroyed in the 7th century by the Arabs. On its ruins, Frederick II, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, built a Crusader fortified building which was called “The Citadel”. The building was restored by King Louis IX of France during the Seventh Crusade, in the second half of the 13th century.
The apse of the church uniquely faces west and not east, a symbol of Peter’s vision, or the direction from which the angel came, and which paved the door for turning to the Gentiles, among others beyond the sea. The west-facing apse also parallels the faces of the Christian pilgrims, who arrived in the Holy Land for hundreds of years through the port of Jaffa.
