loaves is laid next to a large rock, which has caused some New Testament scholars to speculate that the builders of the original church believed that Jesus stood on this rock when he blessed the fish and loaves just before the feeding of the crowd who had come to hear him. The large monastery and a church were built in the fifth century. While some date the destruction of the site to the time of the Arab conquest, the church was most likely destroyed in 614 during the Persian invasion, for already in AD 670, Bishop Arculf had reported that only columns from the church remained. In any way, by the Crusader conquests the Byzantine site was forgotten, and rediscovered only in the 20th century. The area's lands were bought in the 18th century by a Catholic German association, so they could build a hotel for pilgrims. As they began digging for the construction they discovered archaeological evidence of an earlier church, but could not make excavations due to the Ottoman law. Only in 1932, in the times of Mandatory Palestine. After nearly 1300 years of "solitude", two German archaeologists (Mader and Schneider) uncovered a number of the Byzantine church's walls and mosaics In 1981, after further excavations, the church was finally restored by German Benedictines to its Byzantine form, incorporating portions of the original mosaics. The windows are fitted with alabaster panels. Today, the church and surrounding land are property of the German Association of the Holy Land (:de:Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande) whose head is the Archbishop of Cologne. The site is maintained by Benedictine monks from the Dormition Abbey, which is located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Arson attack On 18 June 2015, vandals started a fire that damaged the church and left Hebrew graffiti denouncing the worship of "idols." Israeli Minister of Public Security, Gilad Erdan, released a statement condemning the attack, saying "The torching of the church is a cowardly and despicable act which contradicts Israel's basic values." Adviser to the Catholic Church in Israel says the economic damage to the site could be "in the millions [of shekels]." Investigations by the Israeli police and internal security service led to the arrest and indictment of extremist Jewish Israeli youths associated with the "Price-Tag" movement, whose trial is still ongoing as of July 2016. As promised by Israeli president Reuven Rivlin and the Israeli government shortly