thumb|Jacob's Well, 1912
thumb|right|200px|The Greek Orthodox St. Photini Church at Bir Ya'qub in 2008
thumb|right|200px|The dome of St. Photini Church at Bir Ya'qub (2008)
Jacob's Well, also known as Jacob's Fountain or the Well of Sychar, is a Christian holy site located in Balata village, a suburb of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank. The well, currently situated inside an Eastern Orthodox church and monastery, has been associated in religious tradition with the biblical patriarch Jacob for roughly two millennia.
Religious significance
Jacob's Well is named in the New Testament Gospel of John as the location of Jesus's encounter with the Samaritan woman:
The location of Sychar is uncertain; it may have been a town on the eastern slopes of Mount Ebal, or it may be another name for Shechem. Jacob is an Old Testament patriarch whose story is told in the Hebrew Book of Genesis. There is no specific mention in the Torah (which are the first 5 books of the Old Testament) of a well owned by Jacob, but the plot of ground described as the location of the well is considered by biblical scholars to be identical with the plot purchased by Jacob in Genesis 33, which was said to be "within sight" of Shechem.
The present-day church at Balata village is close to the archaeological site of Tell Balata, traditionally identified with Shechem. The well within this church has long been associated with the New Testament narrative, and Christian tradition therefore holds this well to have been dug by Jacob. Scholars such as James Hastings and Geoffrey W. Bromiley assert that Jewish tradition likewise connects the well with Jacob, By 384 AD, a cruciform church was built over the site, and is mentioned in the 4th century writings of Saint Jerome. There are later 12th-century accounts of a newly built church at Jacob's Well. The first such definitive account comes from Theoderic, who writes: "The well ... is a half a mile distant from the city Nablus: it lies in front of the altar in the church built over it, in which nuns devote themselves to the service of God. This well is called the Fountain of Jacob." Edward Robinson visited the site in the mid-19th century, describing the "remains of the ancient church," lying just above the well to the southwest as a "shapeless mass of ruins, among which are seen fragments of gray, granite columns, still retaining their ancient polish." Local Christians continued to venerate the site even when it was without a church. In 1860, the site was obtained by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and a new church, consecrated to St. Photini the Samaritan, was built in 1893 along with a small monastery. The 1927 Jericho earthquake destroyed that building.
In November 1979, at a time of increased tensions on the West Bank, the custodian of the well, Archimandrite Philoumenos, was found hatcheted to death inside the crypt housing the well. The assailant, a mentally ill resident of Tel Aviv, was apprehended three years later and confessed to that slaying and others, including an assault on a nun at the monastery and the axe murder of a Jewish psychiatrist in Tel Aviv. In 2009, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem declared Philoumenos a saint thirty years after his death.
Abuna (meaning "Father") Ioustinos, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nablus, later spearheaded a huge reconstruction project. Jacob's Well has since been restored and a new church modelled along the designs of the Crusader-era church houses the well inside it, in a crypt on a lower level. The well is accessed by entering the church on the monastery grounds, and descending the stairs to a crypt where the well still stands, along with "a small winch, a bucket, ex-voto icons and lots of lit candles."
According to Major Anderson, who visited the site in 1866, the well has: <blockquote>"...a narrow opening, just wide enough to allow the body of a man to pass through with arms uplifted, and this narrow neck, which is about 4 ft. long, opens into the well itself, which is cylindrically shaped, and opens about 7 ft. 6 in. in diameter. The well and upper part of the well are built of masonry, and the well appears to have been sunk through a mixture of alluvial soil and limestone fragments, till a compact bed of mountain limestone was reached, having horizontal strata which could be easily worked; and the interior of the well presents the appearance of having been lined throughout with rough masonry."