2 Best Sights in Lower Galilee, Israel

The German Benedictines dedicated this large, orange-roofed Roman Catholic church in 1936 on the scanty remains of earlier shrines. The site has long been venerated as the "deserted place" (Mark 6:30–6:34) where Jesus miraculously multiplied two fishes and five loaves of bread to feed the crowds. The present airy limestone building with the wooden-truss ceiling was built in the style of a Byzantine basilica to give a fitting context to the beautifully wrought 5th-century mosaic floor depicting the loaves and fishes in front of the altar. The nave is covered with geometric designs, but the front of the aisles is filled with flora and birds and, curiously, a nilometer, a graded column once used to measure the flood level of the Nile for the purpose of assessing that year's collectible taxes.

The austere, black basalt church, just east of the Church of the Multiplication, is built on the water's edge, over a flat rock known as Mensa Christi (the Table of Christ). After his resurrection, the New Testament relates, Jesus appeared to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee and presented them a miraculous catch of fish. Three times Jesus asked his disciple Peter if he loved him, and after his reply of "You know that I love you," Jesus commanded him to "feed my sheep" (John 21:17). Some scholars see this affirmation as Peter's atonement for having thrice denied Jesus in Jerusalem. The episode is seen as establishing Peter's "primacy."