page_title: Lod
section_title: Byzantine period
hierarchical_section_title: Lod / History / Byzantine period
caption_attribution_description: English: The tomb of Saint George in Lod, Israel Italiano: La tomba di San Giorgio (Lod, Israele) 02
context_page_description: Lod is a city 15 km southeast of Tel Aviv in the Central District of Israel. In 2019 it had a population of 77,223.
  The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod, and it was a significant Judean town from the Maccabean Period to the early Christian period. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War most of the city's Arab inhabitants were expelled in the 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle. The town was resettled by Jewish immigrants, most of them from Arab countries, alongside 1,056 Arabs who remained. Today, the city has an Arab population of 30%.
  Israel's main international airport, Ben Gurion Airport is located on the outskirts of the city.
context_section_description: In December 415, the Council of Diospolis was held here to try Pelagius; he was acquitted. In the sixth century, the city was renamed Georgiopolis after St. George, a soldier in the guard of the emperor Diocletian, who was born there between 256 and 285 CE. The Church of St George is named for him.
  The 6th-century Madaba map shows Lydda as an unwalled city with a cluster of buildings under a black inscription reading "Lod, also Lydea, also Diospolis". An isolated large building with a semicircular colonnaded plaza in front of it might represent the St George shrine.
caption: Tomb of Saint George, which is first mentioned in about 530 by the pilgrim Theodosius[20]
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