Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral (Beirut)

Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, consecrated in 1764, is Beirut's oldest surviving church, seat of the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut. Tradition attributes the city's original bishopric to the Apostle Quartus, one of the Seventy Disciples, with Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II elevating Beirut to a metropolitan see around 449–450. The cathedral stands over the vanished Byzantine-era Anastasis Cathedral, and 1994 excavations ahead of restoration uncovered Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman remains, now displayed in a 250-square-meter archaeological crypt museum beneath the cathedral, opened in 2011. It stands roughly 80 meters from the Maronite Cathedral of Saint George, both dedicated to the same soldier-saint credited in Lebanese tradition with slaying the dragon in Beirut's bay.