One of three villages on earth where Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken, built in terraces up a cliff an hour north of Damascus.
Can you visit Maaloula in 2026?
Yes, as a half-day trip from Damascus, usually combined with Saidnaya half an hour away. Both monasteries, Mar Sarkis and the convent of St Thecla, are restored and active, and the gorge walk is open. There is no hotel in the village, so plan to return to Damascus the same day.
Maaloula is built in terraces up a mountainside in the Qalamoun, about 56 km northeast of Damascus and some 1,500 metres up. Pale houses stacked against a cliff, a gorge cut through the rock behind them, and a statue of the Virgin on the pinnacle above. It is the kind of place people photograph before they have got out of the car.
The reason to come is harder to photograph. Maaloula is one of three villages where Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in daily life, the last living descendant of the Western branch of the language. Everywhere else it has gone.
Aramaic was the common tongue of the Near East for a thousand years, the language of the Persian empire’s western provinces, of large parts of the Hebrew Bible, and of Jesus. Western Neo-Aramaic is what is left of its western dialects, and it survives in Maaloula, Jubb’adin and Bakh’a, the last two largely emptied by the war.
It survived here because the village was hard to reach. Few people came and few left, and the language passed down inside families. Roads, Arabic-language media and, for a long period, state policy eroded that. Nobody publishes a reliable speaker count. The linguist Rimon Wehbi, who founded the preservation initiative Yawna, estimated in 2025 that of roughly 500 people then living in the village, fewer than a hundred were fluent and another hundred to two hundred spoke it brokenly. He was clear that no fluency survey has ever been done.
Teaching has been intermittent. Georges Ruzqalla, who developed a new script for the language in 2007 and went on teaching after it was banned in 2010, died in 2021. Reporting in 2025 described the village institute as having nobody teaching there since; an account in March 2026 described four teachers and sporadic operation. George Zarour has written 27 works in Aramaic using Arabic script and teaches a weekly group in the church. Yawna runs free online lessons and a dictionary for children and the diaspora.
You will still hear it. Mass is said in Aramaic at Mar Sarkis, and the nuns at the convent of St Thecla pray in it.
The Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus sits on the cliff above the village, probably on the site of a pagan temple. Syria’s own nomination papers date its construction to between 313 and 325, which would make it one of the oldest churches anywhere, and the argument rests on a horseshoe-shaped altar table with a raised rim and no channel for blood sacrifice.
You will read online that the shape proves it predates the Council of Nicaea because Nicaea banned such altars. We could not verify that any such canon exists, so treat the dating as contested rather than settled. What is not in doubt is that the building carries fifth and sixth-century Byzantine work and held a collection of icons including thirteenth-century pieces.
Fighters used the monastery as a position in 2013 and the church was damaged and stripped of icons. It has since been restored and is cared for by a local priest, Father Fadi el-Barqil. Visitors report charred and defaced pieces still in place, left as they were found.
The Antiochian Greek Orthodox convent of St Thecla is built around a cave in the cliff, with the church of St John the Baptist beside it. Thecla appears in the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla as a pupil of the apostle. In the version told here she was pursued for her faith, found the mountain in her way, and the rock split open to let her through. The village takes its name from that gap, and you can walk it.
Twelve or thirteen nuns, depending on the account, were taken from the convent on 2 or 3 December 2013, held at Yabroud and released on 9 March 2014 in a prisoner exchange. One of them, Sister Youstina Khoury, is still at the convent. A visitor in September 2016 found the shrine blackened by fire, its icons gone and its altar smashed. Restoration was well advanced by 2017 and about 90% complete by August 2018, funded in part by a Russian veterans’ organisation, and the nuns returned.
Both convents are active and open in 2026.
Militants took the Safir hotel on high ground above the town in February 2013 and used it as a base. A suicide bombing at an army checkpoint at the village entrance on 4 September 2013 began the fighting proper. Control changed hands over the following months and the village was retaken on 14 April 2014. Around ninety homes were destroyed. Published accounts of the sequence differ in their dates, and we have not tried to reconcile them.
The Safir is still a bombed-out shell on the ridge, and nothing has replaced it, so there is no hotel in Maaloula. The statue of the Virgin was destroyed and replaced on 13 June 2015 by a fibreglass figure just over three metres tall, standing on the original base and called the Lady of Peace.
Population figures vary a great deal by source and by how they count. Roughly two to three thousand people lived here year-round before the war, rising towards ten thousand in summer when Damascus families came up. A few hundred to around a thousand live here now.
Western Neo-Aramaic, the last living descendant of the western branch, still spoken at home here and used in the liturgy at Mar Sarkis and in the nuns' prayers at St Thecla.
The Melkite Greek Catholic monastery on the cliff, with a horseshoe-shaped altar that has been argued to date it to the early fourth century. Restored after being used as a fighting position in 2013.
Antiochian Greek Orthodox, built around a cave in the cliff with the church of St John the Baptist beside it. Burned and stripped in 2013 and 2014, restored, and active again with nuns in residence.
A narrow cut through the rock behind the village, the one the legend says opened to let Thecla escape. It is a short, steep walk and the best thing you will do here.
A fibreglass statue of the Virgin just over three metres tall, raised on 13 June 2015 on the base of the one destroyed in the fighting, on a rock pinnacle above the town.
Pale houses in terraces up the mountainside, lanes that turn into steps, and a view down the Qalamoun. It is small enough to walk end to end in an hour, which is the right way to see it.
Aramaic is the common language of the Near East, and the mountain villages north of Damascus speak its western dialects.
The two Roman soldiers to whom the monastery is dedicated are martyred at Rusafa in the Syrian desert.
Eutychus, bishop of Maaloula, attends the First Council of Nicaea. Syria's own papers date Mar Sarkis to around this period.
Arabic spreads across the region and replaces Aramaic almost everywhere. Isolation in the Qalamoun keeps it alive here.
Georges Ruzqalla develops a new writing system for Western Neo-Aramaic. It is banned in 2010 and he continues teaching with Syriac, Arabic and Latin letters.
A suicide bombing at the checkpoint at the village entrance begins months in which control changes hands. Most residents leave.
Twelve or thirteen nuns are taken from the convent of St Thecla, held at Yabroud, and released on 9 March 2014 in a prisoner exchange.
Fighting ends with around ninety homes destroyed and both monasteries damaged and looted.
The Lady of Peace is raised again in June 2015. Restoration of St Thecla is about 90% complete by August 2018 and the nuns return.
Ruzqalla dies in 2021. Yawna, the Elias Hanna Foundation and George Zarour take up the teaching, with free lessons, a dictionary and work with the diaspora.
Damascus International is about 80 km away. Maaloula is reached by road from Damascus in about an hour, by taxi or on a half-day tour with Saidnaya.
Latest on routes and airlines →Land crossings from neighbouring countries are widely used. Border conditions change, so check status close to your travel date.
Plan your trip →Requirements vary by nationality. Since January 2025 most Western passports collect a visa on arrival, paid in cash US dollars. Check the current position before booking anything non-refundable.
Common questions →Restored historic homes inside the old walls
Modern amenities, walkable to the main sights
Simple, affordable, and close to everything
A hilltop town with a seventh-century convent, usually visited in the same half day.
The old city, the Umayyad Mosque and the souq, and where you will sleep.
A monastery on a ridge above Nebek with medieval frescoes, and the one in Syria that takes overnight guests.
Mountain villages and monasteries along the old road north towards Homs.
Photographs are being added.
33.8464° N, 36.5456° E
In the Qalamoun mountains about 56 km northeast of Damascus, built in terraces up a cliff at roughly 1,500 m.
Open in mapYes, though fewer than before. Western Neo-Aramaic survives here and in Jubb'adin and Bakh'a, the last two largely emptied by the war. No reliable speaker count exists. The linguist Rimon Wehbi estimated in 2025 that of about 500 people then in the village, fewer than a hundred were fluent, while noting no survey has been done.
About 56 km northeast, roughly an hour by road into the Qalamoun mountains. It is a half-day trip and almost always combined with Saidnaya, which is about half an hour away.
No. The Safir Maaloula, which militants seized in February 2013 and used as a base, is a bombed-out ruin on the ridge above the village and nothing has replaced it. Visit from Damascus and return the same day.
Yes. Mar Sarkis has been restored and is cared for by a local priest, and the convent of St Thecla was rebuilt after 2014 and has nuns in residence. Both were active and receiving visitors through 2026. Dress modestly and keep your voice down.
No, although you will see it described that way. Syria put Maaloula on its UNESCO Tentative List in June 1999, proposed under criteria five and six, and it has never been inscribed.
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