Jaffa is one of the oldest ports of the eastern Mediterranean, a city of layered communities where mosques, churches and synagogues stand within a few streets of one another. St Anthony's belongs to that fabric as the Latin — Roman Catholic — parish church, its Gothic Revival architecture and tall façade a distinctive presence among the sandstone houses and market lanes. Inside, pointed arches, coloured glass and a bright nave create a European note within a wholly Levantine setting, an architectural signature of the modern Catholic institutions built in the Holy Land during the era of renewed missionary and educational activity. But the interest of the building is not only stylistic: this is a working parish, with its schools, its associations, its feast days and its weddings, serving one of the Arabic-speaking Christian communities of the coastal cities. Filmed in 4K, the programme moves between the architecture and the congregation, and situates the church in the wider portrait of Jaffa — its port, its markets, its mixed neighbourhoods — offering broadcasters a piece on living religious heritage rather than monuments alone.
