Sabbas the Sanctified founded the laura in 483 on the eastern side of the Kidron Valley, and it later moved to the western side of the gorge. The Church of Theoktistos was built in 486 and consecrated in 491, and is now dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The Church of the Theotokos followed in 502 as the main church, because the community had grown.
The article gives no style, dimensions or materials. The walled compound sits above the Kidron Valley, roughly halfway between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea. John of Damascus's tomb is in a cave beneath the monastery.
An Arab attack in 797 led to the massacre of twenty monks. The article says the monastery was abandoned in the late medieval period, though it also calls it almost continuously inhabited. Women may not enter the walled compound, and it is reported closed to visitors on Wednesdays and Fridays, a claim tagged as needing a citation.
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