Deir Hijleh, Monastery of Saint Gerasimus
It is located in the desert two kilometers away from the baptism site of Jesus Christ, at the borders of the Jordan River, and is known by the golden dome that is surrounded by young trees.
The Monastery of Deir Hijleh, was built by St. Gerasimus in 455 AD, a monk from Lycia in Anatolia, present-day Turkey.The Monastery is owned by the Greek Orthodox community, and it is considered one of the oldest monasteries that includes the most enormous hanging mosaic walls in the world, which is a copy of the original one that was built over the floor of St. George's Church in the sixth century AD in Madaba city in Jordan. The painting contains more than a million mosaic stones with an area estimated at 90 square meters.
St. Gerasimus was the head of a monastery containing 70 monks, and he was a strict conservative monk in his asceticism. The church considers him one of the leaders of the second generation of the hermits of the Jerusalem desert, who followed the first founders of Efthimios and Chariton the Confessor. Saint Gerasimus died in 475, and his burial place is still unknown. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate celebrates the Saint’s feast at the Monastery, on the 18 of March each year.