Encountering the Suryoye of Turkey
Jeanne-Nicole
Saint-Laurent
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2006
Vol. 9, No. 2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv9n2trsaintlaurent
Jean-Nicole Saint-Laurent
Encountering the Suryoye of Turkey
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol9/HV9N2TRSaintLaurent.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 9
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Travelogue
Istanbul
Fanar
Diyarbakir
Amid
Nisibis
Tur Abdin
Edessa
Hah
Qelleth
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[1] The
early Christians traveled from distant lands to touch sacred
places and to gaze upon the faces of holy men and women who
shined forth as vessels of divine love.
I am borrowing this imagery from Georgia
Frank’s work on pilgrimage to visit the living saints in
late antiquity. See The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims
to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000).
In the
tradition of visiting living saints and seeing the landscape
against which they are situated, scholars and students made a
similar journey to the loca sancta of the modern
Syriac-speaking churches in August 2005. Through the
expert organizational skills and enterprising spirit of Dr.
George Kiraz, and on account of the support of many
self-sacrificing people along the way,
Here, the group would like to thank the following
generous people in particular for their help and labors of love
to make the trip a reality. Firstly, my advisor Susan
Ashbrook Harvey of Brown University and Ms. Christine
Athanasiopoulos at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in New York
for arranging for the group to be received in an audience with
His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on August
7, 2006. We would like to thank also Fr. Edip Aydin of
Princeton Theological Seminary for arranging a meeting for our
group with the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Istanbul His Eminence
Mor Filuksinos Yusuf Çetin. We would like to thank
İshak and Sara Tanoğlu for arranging our visit to
Harput and Elazığ. We would also like to thank
Elif and Savas Ulvi Kayaalp for their help in arranging our
flights to Diyarbakir. Many thanks to İsa Doğdu for
arranging our visit to Mor Gabriel, our busses around Tur
Abdin, and our hotel in Mardin. We would also like to
thank the Aziz family for arranging our stay at the Bektaş
Hotel in Istanbul.
we visited the
Christian sites of Istanbul, Tur Abdin, and Harput, August
3-18, 2005. The trip was organized by Dorushe, the
graduate student organization affiliated with Beth Mardutho:
The Syriac Institute. Each day uncovered new pearls for us, as
we encountered the distant voices of the Syriac past as well as
the living faces that comprise the modern churches of the
Syrian Christians in Turkey.
[2] Our
group itself was a felicitous blend of students, scholars, and
enthusiasts of Syriac. George Kiraz of Beth Mardutho came with
his wife Christine, who co-directs Gorgias Press, and they
brought their two children Tabitha (4) and Sebastian Kenoro
(2). Having these youngsters, who are fluent in
Kthobonoyo Syriac, brought joy to the group and
impressed the local clergy and people of Tur Abdin. George's
sister, Alaria Saar, and her friend Hoang-Anh Do, came from
California, and with their pharmaceutical knowledge they helped
to keep our bodies calm from the spice of Turkish
food. Rev. Dr. Paul S. Russell, a Syriac scholar, joined
us from St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College in
Berkeley, CA. Prof. Alison Salvesen from Oxford
University accompanied us as our group Syriac scholar.
Hidemi Takahashi, a Bar Hebraeus scholar of boundless curiosity
and encyclopedic knowledge of Syriac Christianity, joined us
from Chuo University, Tokyo (he has since transferred to the
University of Tokyo). Our graduate student constituency
included Carl Griffin from Brigham Young University, Jonathan
Loopstra from the Catholic University of America, Miriam
Goldstein from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mark DelCogliano
from Emory University, Rev. Gareth Hughes from Cardiff
University in Wales, and myself from Brown University. In
all, we hailed from four countries, six universities. Thus
fifteen distinct personalities came together to create a wealth
of knowledge and energy for the group.
[3] We spent
the first few days in Istanbul as we joined together from
various countries. We visited the magnificent Hagia
Sophia/Ayasofya, once the great church of Byzantine
Christendom. We also saw the Chora Church and enjoyed the
beauty that adorns Turkey's historical center. The true
highlights, however, were meeting the groups of Christians in
Istanbul: both the Greek Orthodox and the Syriac
Orthodox. The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Roman
Catholic Church also have important communities in Istanbul,
and all the Christian groups together have solid and sisterly
relationships. We attended the evening prayer of the
Syriac Orthodox community in a church outside of
Istanbul. The people greeted us with warm hospitality, and
His Eminence Filuksinos Yusuf Çetin, Syriac Orthodox
Metropolitan for Istanbul and Ankara, invited us to a
reception. He shared with us the current situation of
their church in Istanbul, and he related his efforts to
strengthen the community of the Suryoye in the city through
reaching out especially to the young people of his
flock. He spoke of the struggles of being a minority
religion in Turkey, and he emphasized the importance of keeping
a close relationship with the monastic communities and dioceses
of Tur Abdin and Harput. The bishop gave us generous
souvenirs from our visit. The nuns living there at his
residence prepared a delicious meal for us, and we met some of
the pillars of the Istanbul Suryoyo community.
[4] On
Sunday, August 7, we traveled to the Phanar district of
Istanbul to attend the liturgy celebrated by His All Holiness
the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. There, we celebrated with
the Orthodox Church the morning prayers and divine liturgy, in
the presence of the relics of John Chrysostom and Gregory of
Nazianzus. Our group had the honor of being received by the
Patriarch, who bestowed gifts on us. He shared his vision for
the Church, his efforts to attend to his local and global
flock, and his personal dedication to causes like the
protection of the environment. A man of grace and
humility, he blessed the baby Sebastian Kenoro Kiraz. He
told us how much his Church needs the prayers and love of the
global Christian community.
[5] Monday,
August 8, we flew to Diyarbakir in Southeastern Turkey, where
our bus drivers Elias (from Midin) and Faulos (from Beth
Qustan) greeted us. It was a delight to hear the beauty of
their spoken Syriac, and in the vans we were graced to listen
to the modern music of the Suryoyo community! We drove
into Diyarbakir, ancient Amida, and we visited the Syriac
Orthodox church of the Yoldath Aloho (Meryemana). The
church, the seat of the patriarchate for brief periods in the
1860’s, is set off by walls, and as one enters one sees a
small garden that the small community tends. The women
were working outside in the shade on their quilting and drying
fruits and vegetables. The walls of the church contained
many beautiful inlaid Syriac inscriptions. The church itself
contained the relics of Dionysius Bar Salibi and the tomb of
Jacob of Sarugh. The priest who received us in the church, Fr.
Yusuf Akbulut, had the experience, in 2000-2001, of spending
some months in cells—which were not of the monastic
kind—for talking in public on the genocide of the
Christians in the early 20th century. We also
visited the church of Mar Petyon, which is Chaldean
Catholic. There was once an Armenian church in Diyarbakir
(now occupied by a Kurdish family), but we were unable to get
inside. What was the main church of the city is now a mosque,
reminiscent in its style, though smaller, of another edifice
with a similar history, the Umayyad Mosque in
Damascus. After leaving the city with its formidable
basalt wall, we stopped along the Tigris River at an old stone
bridge, built in 1065. We coasted alongside the River for
another hour before reaching Mardin, our home for the next four
nights.
Photograph 1. At the Church of
Yoldath Aloho (Meryemana) in Diyarbakir
[6] Our
second day in the area around Tur Abdin took us to the once
mighty fortress-town of Dara. There is an interesting
depiction there of a risen Christ on the outside of a cave. We
visited the necropolis and underground cistern, and the local
children there gave us flowers. We climbed below to a
church now underground that had been a temple to the sun gods
worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians. Outside we saw a structure
with “channels” that had once been covered by
arches. It seems to have been a storage area for grain
— logical, as pointed out by Dr. Salvesen, given the
constant back and forth of armies in the region that would have
used such grain stores.
[7] We drove
further to Nisibis, modern Nusaybin, to visit the city that was
once a stronghold for Syriac literature and learning, the place
St. Ephrem and St. Jacob called home. We visited the
impressive church of Mor Yaʿqub with its
double altars. On his journeys as bishop, Mor
Yaʿqub had seen the bigger churches of
cities like Nicaea, and he decided that Nisibis deserved one,
too. We climbed down to the crypt of the city's great
fourth-century church that lies underneath the altar to touch
the tomb of Mor Yaʿqub. We walked
around the outside of the church that has been partially
excavated, and was completely underground until three years
ago. We read inscriptions on its hallowed walls. While in the
church with the tomb of Mor Yaʿqub beneath
our feet, Dr. Salvesen lectured for the group on Syrian
Christianity in the Nisibene area. Dr. Salvesen related the
history of the area around Nisibis, drawing on the information
from the Syriac Chronicles. The School at Nisibis has not yet
been excavated.
Photograph 2. The Church of Mor
Yaʿqub of Nisibis
[8] We spoke
with other pilgrims in Nisibis who had come from Germany.
Political danger had driven them from their village of Mor Bobo
nearby, and the father had taken his daughters back to the Tur
Abdin area so that they could reconnect with their roots. We
also met as a large group of Christians from the city of
Qamishli in Syria, just across the border from Nisibis. From
Nisibis we drove up the valley along the ancient Mygdonius and
had lunch by the headwaters of the White Waters (Maye
Hewore) where we cooled down with kebobs. This
restaurant/picnic area suspended on rafts over the water was a
refreshing break from the scorching weather, and we visited
with a number of Kurdish Muslim families who had come back for
summer visits to the area. We could speak to the children in
German or French, and they translated for the parents, who,
despite the relatively long period they had been in Europe,
were limited in languages other than Kurdish. Kurdish musicians
serenaded us on the kemanje and other regional
instruments.
Photograph 3. The White Waters
(Maye Hewore)
[9] We drove
on into the heart of Tur Abdin, on the way passing over the
watershed between the Tigris and the Euphrates. We arrived at
the Monastery of Mor Gabriel, where the Metropolitan Bishop of
Tur Abdin, Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktaş, greeted us and
offered us tea and watermelon. We met Malfono Isa there, who
busily works as a teacher at Mor Gabriel, teaching local boys
such as Faulos (who spoke both Kthobonoyo and modern
Syriac, as well as Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and some English!),
as well as Suryoyo youth who arrive from Europe to study for a
period of time before beginning university back home. Isa gave
us a tour of the monastery and the churches, much of it
recently refurbished. It was stunning in its monumental beauty.
The main church at Mor Gabriel has a beautiful mosaic floor and
altar. Behind the altar we climbed up into the cave where
ascetics would watch and pray in solitude. He took us to
the Beth Qadishe (burial area), and we touched sacred
relics. We saw the eating areas and the beautiful fields below
where the monastic community grows crops. The women in our
group also went to the convent to meet the nuns. Our
reception at Mor Gabriel was warm and unforgettable. We went to
Ramsho prayer service with the people, in a plain but
beautiful chapel, and then we continued on to supper with them:
simple fare, including yogurt-barley soup. We sat upstairs
for tea afterwards and spoke with visitors — the
monastery is a popular destination amongst Christians from
Syria. Among them were visitors from Melkiyya (the hometown of
Mor Severios Malki Murad, current Syriac Orthodox bishop of
Jerusalem) and Qamishli.
Photograph 4. At the monastery of
Mor Gabriel with Metropolitan Mor Timotheos Samuel
Aktaş
[10] On
August 10th, we began the fast before the feast of
the Assumption, or ‘Transfer’ (shunoyo),
as it is called in Syriac. We traveled northeast from
Mardin, on the Mardin-Midyat road to Qelleth (Syr.) /Qillith
(Arab.). Although the historic route from Mardin to Midyat
passed through Qelleth, today the village is not off the modern
main road. Thus, it took quite a long time to find this
village, yet we realized as soon as we arrive that it was worth
the effort. Once a populated Christian town, all the Christians
have since left. However, we met a man there who has returned
to restore the Syriac Orthodox church there, Mor
Yuhanon. He had left the village for Sweden sixteen years
before. The Swedish Syriac Orthodox community is funding this
project. Today only two families remain in the village. Qelleth
is rather isolated and must receive supplies intermittently
from other towns. There is a small graveyard there, where
one sees the grave of the mukhtar who was killed by
the Kurds in 1992. Above the altar in the church reads
Ilono d’haye — tree of life. Sebastian and
Tabitha ran all around the church, as the scholars sorted
through a pile of manuscripts and papers in the back of the
church. Others explored the remains of houses, doing their best
to avoid the bats! There are ruins of three monasteries in the
area, Mor Abai, Mor Dimet, and the “Monastery of the
Headache”, the last visited by those seeking cure from
migraine. Additionally, the town has abandoned Syrian Catholic
and Protestant churches. Some work had been done to restore the
Protestant church.
Photograph 5. Scavenging for
manuscripts at the Church of Mor Yuhannon at Qelleth
[11] We
also visited the town of Bnebil, where we met a charming
eighty-five year old priest, who recounted stories of the
struggles, resilience, and valiance of the Christians in recent
history. The priest Yaʿqub bar Isa
Shemʿun Kfarzoyo (Yakub Günay in
Turkish) lives there with his wife. Although they are both
in their eighties, they are flourishing with stalwart
spirits. Fr. Yaʿqub was ordained a
priest in 1954. Some of us remained outside and spoke with the
priest’s wife, a small woman with thick glasses, who
spoke of the difficulties of life in the town. Eight Christian
families and two Muslim families remain. The church contained
among its many treasures that the qashisho showed us,
a manuscript from the pen of the scholar-bishop Filuksinos
Yuhannon Dolabani. Fr. Yaʿqub told us how
fifty people had left Bnebil after fights with the Muslims in
the 1960’s, and many had fled to Syria or
Istanbul. In 1915, the Kurds had come and killed four of
the city’s leaders. The church has received aid from
Sweden to help restoration efforts. As we left Bnebil, we
could see the Monastery of Mor Stephanos in the cliff above the
village.
Photograph 6. Qashisho
Yaʿqub bar Isa Shemʿun
Kfarzoyo at the Church of Mor Yaʿqub,
Bnebil
[12] In
the evening, we went up to the stunning Dayr
al-Zaʿfaran, the saffron monastery perched
on a hill overlooking the plain to the south of Mardin. As we
arrived, it was nearing sundown. We quickly prepared to ascend
the hill atop the monastery, where four other monasteries for
solitaries lie. A young man who was living at the monastery,
Ephrem, led us up through the bushy terrain, and after a half
hour of steady climbing, steep and difficult in some places, we
reached the monastery of Our Lady of the Drop [Yoldath Aloho
d-Nutfo/Dayro d-Nutfo]. It is perched on the top of the
mountain, carved into the face of the rock, with stunningly
beautiful views over the plain below and Dayr
al-Zaʿfaran. Only silence dwells there now,
and the spirits of the monastics who had prayed there for
centuries filled the summer evening with comfort and assurance.
We gathered as a group in the chapel and gave thanks —
“it was good to be there.” On the climb downwards,
although it was nearly dark, we followed the way of a shepherd
and his sheep, and we reached the monastery by evening.
Photograph 7. The view from the
monastery of Yoldath Aloho d-Nutfo
[13] Some
special guests were awaiting us inside Dayr
al-Zaʿfaran. The great living light of
Syriac learning, Malfono Abrohom Nouro, happened to be there
visiting from Aleppo, and his presence and refulgent spirit was
a grace. He spoke to our group about his life’s work and
passion: the promotion, pedagogy and scholarship of the Syriac
language. His energy was boundless, and we were able to buy
signed copies of his books on learning Syriac, including
Souloko. We also met Hatune Doğan, a Syriac
scholar and teacher originally from the village of Zaz in Tur
Abdin, but who now lives in Germany. She has been working
with young women coming to Dayr al-Zaʿfaran
from abroad to learn Syriac. She spoke of her efforts to
promote girls’ education in the monastery. Metropolitan
Filuksinos Saliba Özmen of Mardin, who lives in Dayr
al-Zaʿfaran, greeted us warmly and sat and
talked with us for a long while. There was a lively exchange
between the bishop and the scholars from Britain, who updated
him on the state of Syriac Studies at Oxford, where the Bishop
had studied. His Eminence gave us much love and thoughtful
presents, and Dr. Salvesen gave him his favorite English tea.
We also received a tour of the monastery, seeing the places
where the patriarchs and bishops of the past were buried in the
walls. We visited the living quarters of the bishop. Many
pilgrims were simultaneously visiting as we were there. We
shared a lovely meal with the people there, and later we drove
back to Mardin, high above the plain.
[14] The
next morning, we woke up early to set out on the three hour
drive to Urfa, or ancient Edessa/Urhoy. The drive between
Mardin and Edessa is long and dry, and we planned to do it in
one day. We passed by Viranşehir — ancient
Tella. As we reached Edessa, we were struck by a town buzzing
around with people and traffic. We stopped for a drink of ayran
and some bread and pastries in a park before beginning our
excursion. We walked to the top of the towering citadel
protecting the city, and we investigated its two columns with
their famed Syriac inscription. The two large columns are also
called “Nimrod’s throne,” and according to
legend Abraham was launched from them when he was a baby. He
was caught by a pool, where holy carp now swim. After climbing
around the citadel, we walked down to see the carp.
[15] The
museum of the city contains outside the lovely mosaics from
ancient Edessa known to us from Segal,
J. B. Segal, Edessa 'The Blessed City'
(Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2002, 2nd edition).
but they are
outside, unkempt, and dusty. The outside yard of the museum
contains Christian funerary inscriptions and tombs, as well as
pillars, Roman statues, Hittite engravings of archers, and
inscriptions from Tella and other important historical sites.
It was painful to see these treasures, in Syriac, Greek and
Ottoman Turkish, unlabeled and “maintained” outside
in questionable conditions. The inside of the museum contains
the sad remnants of the twentieth-century atrocities against
the Christians in Edessa: statuettes of saints from modern
churches now stripped sit in the museum and gather dust. Some
of us wandered around the streets of Urfa — two main
streets that designate the earlier flow of the Daysan before
its rerouting by Justinian, which flank the raised level of the
town itself. We visited many churches that have been
transformed into mosques, such as the former St. John’s
church, where the two building structures were clearly once a
church and baptistery. We were led to the former Armenian
church, now a mosque, by three locals, 20-something-year-old
Turks who were happy to tolerate our primitive Turkish! We also
wandered around in the bazaar, which was built by Suleiman the
Magnificent.
[16] We
were unsuccessful in locating the rock tombs described by Segal
as being in the hills to the west of the citadel, being
directed first to the modern town cemetery, a result of the
unsuccessful combination of Said’s (our bus driver)
Turkish and Miriam’s Arabic. Edessa’s vestiges
of its shiny Christian past are difficult to discern now, as
mosques stand where once Ephrem’s church would have been.
Egeria who visited Edessa in the fourth century would probably
not recognize the town there, yet we perceived with our hearts
through the spirit of the city the beauty that earned Edessa
the epithet of “blessed.” We stopped through Harran
on our way back, braving nearly five kilometers of unpaved
road, apparently part of the Turkish efforts at renewing the
region along with the new dam. The town walls have been
partially restored, as well as one of the gates, and we drove
inside the village to see the famous beehive houses. The
aggressive behavior of the locals encouraged us to leave Harran
quickly, following Abraham’s example!
[17] On
August 12, we continued our tour of the villages of Tur
Abdin. We drove to Azekh, also known as Idil, a town to
which the Kirazes could trace their maternal roots. In
Azekh/Beth Zabday we met a small group of Suryoye jewelers who
had set up their shop for business, having returned to Azekh
after living for a time in Germany. We bought some presents for
our loved ones back at home. The Suryoye shared with us
how they had single-handedly raised up their church from the
rubble, and they were working tirelessly to reestablish a
strong foothold of their Christian community in Azekh. They
took us inside the church. They narrated to us how the people
of Azekh “held on” in 1915 for forty days while
their village was attacked. Likewise, in 1923 the
Christian women of Azekh had fiercely warded off the Turks with
stones, and they attributed their success to help from the
Virgin Mary, for whom the church of Yoldath Aloho is named. Our
guides also told us about the German military adviser (WWI) who
was with the besieging army, who decided to become a monk
following this miraculous victory. He reportedly later became a
cardinal!
Photograph 8. A manuscript at the
Church of Yoldath Aloho, Azekh. The boy is Yusuf, a grandson of
late Fr. Yusuf Bilen (d. 1980) - the last resident priest of
Azekh.
[18] When
the people here speak of their roots, their tone of voice
reveals the pride they had in the strength of their
forefathers. We were joined in our visit to the church by
Suryoye visiting from abroad, such as Gabriel, who left 25
years ago. He now lives in Holland and has children whom
he has named Nineveh, Babel and Salin (former name of
Qamishli). Many of these visitors stay in town during the day,
but sleep in the guest rooms at Mor Gabriel. They spoke of the
importance of preserving their culture and heritage.
[19] We
traveled onwards to Midin, a town that remains wholly
Christian. Our bus driver Elias hails from Midin, and he
showed us where he had grown up and played football as a
boy. Suzy was our guide in Midin. She had returned to
Midin five years previously, after living for twenty years in
Germany. She was energetic and young-looking — “I
don’t feel 40!” Her husband had died prior to
her return to Midin, and she told us it was not easy for her to
make ends meet. She shared that the locals receive few
“tourists” in Midin. We visited also the
church of Mor Sobo in the courtyard of a local house in Midin,
and it lies half underground. The main Church in Midin is
named after Mor Yaʿqub of Sarugh, which was
originally built in 450 AD. It was destroyed during Timur
Lane’s invasion of the area and rebuilt in 1525. We were
told that there were three other churches in use — Mor
Barsaumo, Mor Zokhe, Mor Yuhanon
Maʿmdono/John the Baptist. In all, twenty
churches adorn the town! Around fifty-five families live in
Midin today, and they keep themselves isolated from the
non-Christian population around them.
Photograph 9. A Gospel manuscript
at the Church of Mor Ya'qub of Sarug in Midin, copied in 2179
A.Gr. (1867/8 A.D.) by a Marqos "Squloyo" Sbirinoyo
[20] We
then visited Beth Sbirino, where a charming boy who spoke
excellent German showed us the main church of Mor
Dodo. There, we read manuscripts in Karshuni with the
local malfono — he enjoyed it as much as we did! There
were once twenty-five churches in Beth Sbirino.
Photograph 10. Children in the
courtyard of the Church of Mor Dodo in Beth Sbirino
[21] On
August 13th, we traveled to Salah, where there is only a very
small, but valiant Christian community now. We visited the
Monastery of Mor Yaʿqub, once the seat of
the “patriarchs of Tur Abdin.” Here, a number of
monks and nuns have come to live, after restoring the church
and setting it up for visitors splendidly. Aziz Bolan, the only
Christian left in the town, received us. We spent a good part
of the morning examining the numerous inscriptions around the
entrance to the church, and then Aziz gave us a tour of the
whole complex, including excavations undertaken near the back.
Aziz was quite happy to take us into town to see houses and
churches once belonging to Christians. We followed Aziz through
the village, trying to avoid the open running sewage in the
streets and the barn animals roaming freely, and he took us to
the church of Mor Aphrem which is used now as a cowshed.
Photograph 11. Church of Mor
Aphrem in Salah, now a cowshed
[22] In
Hah, we went to the radiant church of Yoldath Aloho. There are
about twenty Christian families there today. According to
legend, this church is the oldest church in Christendom, built
by the kings from the East on their way home from Bethlehem.
(According to more “scientific” accounts, it was
originally built in the 7th or 8th
century.) It is a restored jewel against a beautiful desert
landscape, unique in its octagonal shape, and intricately
decorated inside. The eve of the great feast of the Assumption
was in the air, and pilgrims whom we had met along the way were
preparing for the overnight stay in Hah. We ate lunch there
along with Faulos, and we very much enjoyed the cooking of the
friendly woman running the kitchen. In Hah, we also went to the
ruins of Mor Sobo and wandered around in its buildings and
graveyard.
Photograph 12. Church of Yoldath
Aloho at Hah
[23]
Next, we stopped at Bakusyone, or Beth Qustan (Constantine),
the home of both the eponymous abbot and present bishop of the
Monastery of Mor Gabriel. The church there is named Mor Eliyo.
This was also the hometown of our bus driver Faulos, and we got
to meet his little baby boy while passing through. It has been
greatly restored, as well.
[24] We
drove onwards to the lovely Dayro da-Slibo, where five
Christian families have returned from Europe to live in the old
monastic complex. The main church is dedicated to the Holy
Cross. The smaller building to the right was the church (grave)
of Mor Aho. The nun who lives there now, Maryam, is a sprightly
and intelligent woman, who spoke to us in Arabic as she climbed
up and down the ecclesiastical complex, which has been lovingly
restored by the Swedish Suryoye community. The monastery is
built “higgledy-piggledy” with staircases all
around. Sister Maryam’s brother Gabriel was also there.
We also met Khālisa, who was drying salted tomatoes on the
roof of the church! We sat and drank tea and cold water
(getting brave — not from bottles!) with Maryam. Despite
her sprightliness, it was clear that she had huge
responsibilities in taking care of the large complex.
[25] Then
we drove back to Midyat, and we stopped outside the town to see
the Monastery of Mor Abrohom and Hobil, founded in the fifth
century. We then entered Midyat and visited Mor Shimuni. Inside
the church, Faulos opened up a grand copy of the Syriac Gospels
with colored pictures, and he read with us. We read
inscriptions on the baptistery and all over the church, and
those of us with less experience with inscriptions were helped
by our comrades as well as our driver! It is worth
mentioning that Faulos was far beyond a mere driver, serving as
translator between the numerous languages mentioned above, as
well as correcting our Syriac reading!
[26] We
visited the church Mor Barsaumo in Midyat, where the faithful
were emerging, each with two loaves of bread, in observance of
a funeral of a priest who had been killed in a car accident the
day before. There, Malfono Ayhan showed us his classroom, and
we saw the bread baking for the next day’s mass on a coal
stove. We were hungry, and it smelled great! The drive back
from Midyat in the evening was beautiful, and we watched the
sunset and as we passed through small villages.
[27] On
Sunday in Mardin, we visited the church of the Forty Martyrs,
where we attended the Divine Liturgy. We were received by the
bishop of Mardin/Dayr al-Zaʿfaran, Bishop
Saliba. We sat in his beautiful salon with many of the faithful
and drank bitter coffee (due to the funeral the day before).
Mardin was the seat of the bishop, who is now in residence at
Dayr al-Zaʿfaran. It was the center
of the patriarchate until 1933, when it moved to Homs in Syria.
The church there, named for the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, is
370 years old. The interior is beautifully decorated with icons
of saints, including a stunning one of the Martyrs of Sebaste
meeting their chilly death. The church was quite full for the
Sunday liturgy.
Photograph 13. Divine Liturgy at
the Church of the Forty Martyrs, Mardin
Photograph 14. With Metropolitan
Filuksinos Saliba Özmen of Mardin and Chor Episcopus
Gabriel Akyuz at the Church of the Forty Martyrs
[28] Our
beautiful Hotel of the Caravansaray in Mardin, with a stunning
view from its top deck, made a wonderful home base for
us. We often walked up and down the streets of Mardin,
smelling fresh bread and spices. Miriam and I rose at 6 am
each morning to run around the city — and to work-off
delicious baklava!
[29] We
headed north the next day—a long drive—to
Elazığ, stopping in Diyarbakır for
lunch. We passed through a canyon area and drove by a
large beautiful lake. In Elazığ, we were met by
the friendly Tanoğlu family, who took us to the church of
Mor Giwargis. The church of the Syriac Orthodox community in
Elazığ is small and simple, to support a community of
a few families.
[30] Our
group was treated to three excellent lectures by the poolside
of our hotel in Elazığ. The first was from
George Kiraz, who directed us in improving our spoken Syriac,
using John Healey’s book Leshono Suryoyo: First
Studies in Syriac (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press,
2005). Hidemi Takahashi reviewed with us his scholarship
on Bar Hebraeus, referring us to his book Bar Hebraeus: A
Bio-Bibliography (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005). We
then heard from Alison Salvesen, who spoke about how Syriac
writers of the fourth century, like Ephrem, describe or
identify themselves in relation to the area in which they grew
up. She mentioned, for example, that Ephrem’s fourth hymn
on Julian Sabas referred to our land as the land of
Abraham, Jacob and the patriarchs. She also spoke about Jacob
of Edessa’s pride that Syriac was a language close to
Hebrew, although he himself was “pro-Greek.” For
the East-Syrians, in contrast, Hebrew had less prestige, but
the biblical references to Aram were very important. She
spoke about the evolution of the term “Syrian,” and
the linguistic and geographical definitions that developed
throughout the first millennium CE.
[31] For
the feast of the Virgin Mary, we drove up to the city of
Harput, and the church of Yoldath Aloho. Harput has long been a
center of Syriac and Armenian Christianity. The church in
Harput dates from the second century, and has long been a place
of pilgrimage to Mary. Although the majority of Harput’s
citizens left at the beginning of the century, the church has
remained, strong and beautiful atop the cliff with a vast plain
extending beneath it. The church has a cavernous feel to
it, and when one enters, one is greeted by beautiful icons and
the smells of candles and incense. The pilgrims came for the
feast of Mary on August 15, after fasting six days before. On
the day that we were there, we met Christians who had come from
as far away as Adıyaman and other places, journeying to
honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. The divine liturgy was
beautifully offered, in Syriac, Arabic and Turkish, and
afterwards we feasted with the others who had journeyed there
at a café overlooking the modern Elazığ below.
The community was remarkably friendly.
[32]
Later that day we had the treat of visiting the historic
restored house in Harput with an energetic and witty guide,
Rabban Melke, who rattled off a spirited tour in Syriac,
Arabic, and Turkish. A house there has been restored in
order to show the way people used to live in Harput, and there
are plans to expand the complex in coming years. They proudly
took out the architectural plans to show us. Rabban Melke
showed us around the house. A few of us then went to explore
the fortress of Harput following the visit.
Photograph 15. At the restored
historic house of Harput with Rabban Melke
[33] On
our last day, we drove out to Malatya/Melitene, once the center
of Syriac Orthodoxy in the days of such men as Patriarch
Michael I, Dionysius bar Salibi and Bar Hebraeus. Thanks to
Hidemi’s and George’s endless curiosity, our drive
to Melitene took us “off the beaten track” in order
to glean more information about the abandoned Armenian churches
we passed along the way. We crossed (or ran on foot) over
the Euphrates and stepped out of the van to drink in the beauty
of the natural surroundings. We spotted the sign of a
church/monastery on our map, and then we decided to backtrack a
bit in order to discover more about it. Our drivers stopped
along the side of the road in order to ask some local farmers
where we should go. They instructed us, and then after
learning that we were Christians, launched into a theological
discussion with us. They wanted to know how it was that
Christians believed that Jesus was God. I was impressed at
their curiosity, but as we had left our notes on Nicene
Christology at the hotel, we continued on our way in search of
the church. Up through the thorny bushy path we climbed until
we reached the ruins of an Ottoman fort on top of the
hill. We never, alas, found the monastery of Tomisa.
[34] We
continued on to Malatya, which is the mishmish or
apricot capital of Turkey, where we drove through the orchards,
searching for the remnants of Byzantine and Seljukid
Melitene. In Eski (or Old) Malatya, the walls of the city,
whose construction began under Trajan and was continued by
Diocletian and Justinian, can still be visited. Little else
remains in Eski Malatya from its Byzantine days, but the Ulu
Cami (Great Mosque), constructed by the Seljuks, stands much in
the same way as it did in Bar Hebraeus’ time. A little
way away from Eski Malatya, after a bit of circling in and out
of the apricot orchards near the Hittite ruins of Arslantepe,
we found the remains of a church, which we deduced to have been
Armenian.
[35] We
asked the local farmer about what the church was, and he was
hesitant to share much. Then, when Said our driver spoke to him
in Turkish, and obfuscated the fact that we were a group of
Christians, the farmer proceeded to share with pride how his
forefathers had driven the “infidels,” i.e. the
Armenians, from the area. The joy with which he recounted the
atrocities committed against the Christians was chilling and
harsh reminder of the sufferings that the former Christian
inhabitants had experienced.
[36] As
we left the area of Elazığ and drove back to
Diyarbakır, my heart was heavy to leave this place that I
had longed to visit my whole life. We stopped in Diyarbakir
before going back to Istanbul, and we climbed on top of its
basalt walls, walking around the city and looking one last time
towards the Tigris flowing away. The senior citizens of
Diyarbakir congregate under its walls.
[37] Each
memory from this trip is impressed indelibly on my mind. More
than the beauty of the surroundings and the architecture, I
will remember the faces that we met. Thank you to our wonderful
group!! May this be the first of many such trips! May we honor
through our scholarship the living heirs and transmitters of
the Suryoyo culture and history!_______
Acknowledgement
The photographs were graciously provided by Hidemi
Takahashi, Gareth Hughes, and Alaria Saar._______
Notes