Tur Abdin

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Tur Abdin

Tur Abdin (Syriac:??? ?????) is a hilly region of south east Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province

Mardin Province

Mardin Province is a province of Turkey with a population of 745 778. The population was 835,173 in 2000.The capital of the Mardin Province is Mardin....
, and Sirnak Province

Sirnak Province

Sirnak is a Provinces of Turkey in southeastern Anatolia. It has a population of 403,607 . The population was 353,197 in 2000. Kurdish people form the majority....
west of the Tigris

Tigris

The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq....
, on the border with Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
meaning 'mountain of the servants (of God)'.

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Encyclopedia

Tur Abdin (Syriac:??? ?????) is a hilly region of south east Turkey

Turkey

Mardin Province

Mardin Province is a province of Turkey with a population of 745 778. The population was 835,173 in 2000.The capital of the Mardin Province is Mardin....
, and Sirnak Province

Sirnak Province

Sirnak is a Provinces of Turkey in southeastern Anatolia. It has a population of 403,607 . The population was 353,197 in 2000. Kurdish people form the majority....
west of the Tigris

Tigris

Syria

Syriac language

Syriac Orthodox Church

The Syriac Orthodox Church is an autocephaly Oriental Orthodox church based in the Middle East, with members spread throughout the world. It schism with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism over the Council of Chalcedon, which the Syriac Orthodox Church rejects....
Christians, for whom the region used to be a monastic and cultural heartland. The Assyrian/Syriac people of Tur Abdin call themselves Suroye and Suryoye something they share with their brethren Nestorian and Chaldean Assyrians and traditionally speak the Aramaic dialect recently called Turoyo but originally called "Surayt" in their mother tongue.

Monastery

The most important Syriac Orthodox centre in Tur Abdin is the monastery of Dayro d-Mor Hananyo

Dayro d-Mor Hananyo

Mor Hananyo Monastery is an important Syriac Orthodox Church monastery near the Mardin City in Turkey. The monastery are placed in the area known as Tur Abdin, the motherland of the Assyrian people....
, 6 km south east of Mardin

Mardin

Mardin is a city in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for its Arab-style architecture, and for its strategic location on a rocky mountain overlooking the plains of northern Syria....
, in the west of the region. Built from yellow rock, the monastery is affectionately known as Dayro d-Kurkmo in Syriac, Dayr al-Zafaran in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
, or Deyrülzafarân in Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern Europe....
: the Safron Monastery. Founded in AD 493, the monastery was the residence of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch from 1160 to 1932. Although the patriarch now lives in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
the monastery still contains the patriarchal throne and tombs of seven patriarchs and metropolitans. Today the monastery is lead by a bishop and a monk and some lay assistants, and is a school for orphans. The bishop of Mor Hananyo is also the patriarchal vicar of Mardin. His goal is to rebuild the monastery and to preserve the history of the Syriac Orthodox church. The Dayro d-Mor Hananyo is part of the UNESCO wold cultural heritage and was visited by numerous celebrities e.g. like Prince Charles.

In the centre of Tur Abdin, halfway between Midyat

Midyat

Cizre

Cizre is a district of Sirnak Province of Turkey. Cizre is populated by a majority of Kurdish people and Assyrian/Syriac people....
, is Dayro d-Mor Gabriel

Dayro d-Mor Gabriel

Deyrulumur Monastery is the oldest surviving Syriac Orthodox Church monastery in the world. It is located on the Tur Abdin plateau near Midyat in the Mardin Province in Southeastern Turkey, the motherland of the Syriac people....
. Built in AD 397, Mor Gabriel monastery, is the oldest functioning Syriac Orthodox monastery. It is the residence of the Metropolitan Bishop of Tur Abdin, seven nuns, four monks and a host of guests, assistants and students. The monastery is charged with keeping the flame of Syriac Orthodox faith alive in Tur Abdin, for which it is as much a fortress as a church.

History

The town of Midyat

Midyat

Midyat is a district of Mardin Province of Turkey. The ancient city is the epicenter of a centuries-old Christian Syriacs enclave in Southeast-Turkey, widely familiar under its Aramaic name Tur Abdin....
and the villages of Hah, Bequsyone, Dayro da-Slibo, Salah (with the old monastery of Mor Yaqub), `Aynwardo (with Mor Huschabo), Anhel, Kafro, Arkah (Harabale, with Dayro Mor Malke), Beth Sbirino, Middo (Miden), Kerburan, and Azech were all important Syriac Orthodox places among with countless other villages. Hah has the ancient `Idto d'Yoldath-Aloho, the Church of the Mother of God.

During the First World War, 500,000 Assyrian/Syriac people killed in the Armenian

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide , also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, the Great Calamity —refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian people population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I....
and Assyrian Genocide

Assyrian genocide

The Assyrian Genocide was committed against the Assyrian people population of the Ottoman Empire near the end of the World War I by the Young Turks....
(called in Syriac Sayfo, simply 'the sword') and died alongside their coreligionists. In the last few decades, caught between Kurds

Kurdish people

The Kurds are an Iranian peoples ethnolinguistic group mostly inhabiting a region that includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and which is known as Kurdistan....
and Turks

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia, and who mostly speak languages belonging to the Turkic languages....
, many Syriacs have fled the region or been killed. Today there are only 5000, a quarter of the Christian population thirty years ago. Most have fled to Syria

Syria

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
(particularly Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
, the UK and the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
), Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
and the USA. However, in the past few years, a few families have begun to return to Tur Abdin.

On 10 February 2006 and the following day, large demonstrations took place in the city of Midyat

Midyat

Muslim

:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits "....
s angry about the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Denmark newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005....
gathered in Estel, the new part of the city, and started to march towards the old part of Midyat (6 kilometers away), where the Christians live. The mob was stopped by the police before reaching Midyat

Midyat

External links

Margonitho - Syriac Orthodox Resources (see Churches & Monasteries, History and the Rev Stephen Griffith Reports from Tur Abdin)

Tur Abdin

Monastery

History

See also

External links