פרופ' מרדכי אביעם

From its early stages monasticism was related to pilgrimage due to the crucial role that the monks played in looking to the needs of pilgrims, either secular or sacral.
The inextricably link between pilgrims and monks is attested in many holy sites in Palestine, both in desert and inhabited landscapes. Jerusalem and its hinterland, together with the pilgrim roads that lead to mount Nebo in the east, Mount Sinai in the south and Egypt in the south-west, were dotted with dozens of pilgrim Churches that were served and maintained by monks that activities' are documented both in literary sources and archaeological finds.
Although there almost no written source mentioning a pilgrim monastery in the Galilee, archaeological excavations have uncovered remains of monasteries in sites such as Sepphoris, Nazareth, Magdala, Tabgha, Capernaum and Kursi. It seems though that the place of Galilee on the pilgrim map of Late Antiquity was much more significant than is apparent from the itineraries of early Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In this study we will survey the evidence to pilgrim monasteries in the Galilee and analyse the place of monasticism in the Galilean Loca sancta in Late Antiquity.