A church stood on the site as early as AD 425. The present building was put up by the Crusaders in the 1150s or 1160s, who probably dedicated it to Saint Porphyrius. The article names no architect or client. The pavement lies 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 m) below ground level, which suggests the building rests on an earlier church.
Inside it measures 75 by 29 feet (22.9 by 8.9 m). The plan is rectangular, with a single aisle of two groin-vaulted bays, a barrel-vaulted presbytery and a projecting half-domed apse. Three marble columns carry two pointed arches in the western portico. The article compares it to the Great Mosque of Gaza.
The church belongs to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. It was renovated in 1856. On October 19, 2023, an airstrike hit the compound, and the article's accounts differ on whether the church building itself was damaged.
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