Israel & Jordan 2023: St. Gerasimos Monastery

About a 15-minute drive from the previous stop, we were pulling into our next destination for the day the St. Gerasimos Monastery, near the historic city of Jericho. St. Gerasimos in photos is often depicted wqith a lion, which comes from a story where St. Gerasimos found the lion wandering in the desert with a thorn embedded in its paw. The story goes to say that the saint removed the thorn and tended to its wound. From then on, the lion became devoted to the saint.

According to an old tradition, the monastery was built where Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus took shelter in a cave while fleeing Herod.

The visit to the monastery was not fully "guided" in the sense that the tour manager did not provide full information about the monastery. He did tell us about the lion, however, I don't believe I have seen him inside the monastery, especially when we went upstairs. But in fairness to him, the place is full of pilgrims so it's hard to find who's there and who's not. The main church is upstairs and directly beneath it is I later learned had paintings and frescoes depicting the flight of the Holy Family from Herod.

Door to the chapel on the ground floor.

There's a group that was feeding the pilgrims and despite the apprehensions of many in our group about the safety of the food, many of us chose to partake of the offerings. This reminds me of the free meals one can avail at Sikh temples.