Actually, the excavators suspect the villagers carried out their devotions at a smaller local church with two chapels in the village dating to about the same time, which had been discovered half a century ago. The newly discovered, rather bigger edifice may have been a monastery, the archaeologists think, based on adjacent rooms that remain underground after being discovered by Shani Libbi using ground-penetrating radar.

Kafr Kama’s proximity to the iconic site of Mount Tabor – where some believe Jesus underwent the Transfiguration and began to radiate light1 – piqued the interest of Archbishop Youssef Matta, the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Israel. He was invited by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and came to see the site in person.

The main body of the newly discovered church is 12 by 36 meters (39 by 118 feet), which is medium-sized for the region, says Prof. Moti Aviam of the Kinneret Academic College, who is researching the Byzantine period in the Galilee and is collaborating with the Israel Antiquities Authority on this dig.

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• 1. “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart; And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” – Matthew 17:1-2