Mor Mattai Monastery
| Saint Matthew Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Mor Mattai Monastery |
|
| Construction year: | 363 |
| Location: | 36 ° 29 '24 " N , 43 ° 26' 34" E |
| Location: |
Bartella Ninawa , Iraq |
| Purpose: | Syrian Orthodox Monastery |
The Mor Mattai Monastery , the Monastery of St. Matthew ( Aramaic ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܡܬܝ Dayro d-Mor Matay , Arabic دير مار متى), is located on Mount Jebel Alfaf in northern Iraq . It is one of the oldest existing Christian monasteries in the world. Mor Mattai is also known for his considerable collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts. Due to its importance, the monastery, together with some surrounding villages, currently forms one of the three archparchies of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Iraq. Archbishop is Mor Timothaeus Mosa Alshamany .
history
About 20 kilometers from Mosul , Mor Mattai was founded in 363 AD by a Syrian Christian hermit named Matti (Syriac for Matthew), who fled the persecution from Amed (now Diyarbakır ) to nearby Nineveh in Assuristan ( Assyria ) . Matti joined a mostly Nestorian population that had a small Syrian community just above Mount Maqlub. Under his leadership, the community developed a monastic ethos.
Later Mor Mattai was the seat of the Maphrians .
present
The monastery is currently maintained by the Syrian Orthodox Church. Every year on September 14th, Christians from various ecclesiastical denominations gather in the monastery to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Saint Mattai.
Since the outbreak of the Iraq crisis in 2014, the Islamic State has threatened the monastery. The front line held by Kurdish Peshmerga against IS ran just a few kilometers from the monastery . Many Christian settlements in the region have been abandoned due to the war. 17,000 Christian families fled the IS fighters from the Ninevetal alone .
Diocese and bishop
The mar mattai monastery is the seat of its own Syrian Orthodox diocese in the Nineveh plains to the villages Bartella , Baschiqa , Almaghara , Alfaf and Merka belong. The largest city on the Nineveh plain, Baghdida , the majority of which is Syrian Catholic with only a smaller Syrian Orthodox portion, belongs to the Diocese of Mosul , also known as the Diocese of Mosul, Kirkuk and Kurdistan . In addition to the city of Mosul with the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Thomas , the latter also includes the entire area of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan , where the Christian city of Ankawa in the north of Erbil is a focus, and Kirkuk . Mor Timothaeus Mosa Alshamany, born in 1966, has been Archbishop of Mor Mattai Monastery since December 16, 2006.
Detail view
View from the monastery towards Mosul
Relief in the courtyard of the monastery
literature
- Christine Chaillot: The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, A Brief Introduction to its Life and Spirituality , Geneva 1998
- Ignatius Jacob III: dafaqaat al-tiib fii taariikh maar matta al-`ajiib , Damascus 1961
- H. Southgate: Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia; with Statements and Reflections upon the present state of Christianity in Turkey and the Character and Prospects of the Eastern Churches , Dana and Company (381 Broadway), New York 1856
- Oswald Parry: Six months in a Syrian Monastery, Being a Record of the Visit to the Head Quarters of the Syrian Church in Mesopotamia, with Some Account of the Yazidis or Devil Worshippers of Mosul and el Jilwah, Their Sacred Book , Kapitel 19, London 1895
- SP Brock: The Hidden Pearl (2001), Very Rev Kurian Corepiscopa Kaniamparambil, Suryani Sabha, 1982
Web links
- Dayro d-Mor Matay, Mosul, Iraq on sor.cua.edu, the website of Syriac Orthodox Resources (SOR) (English)
- Mor Mattai Dayrol near Mosul, Iraq on syriacchristianity.info (English)
- Monastère de Mor Mattai - Mosul - Iraq on cso-france.voila.net , the website of the Syrian Orthodox French community (French)
- William Warda: Early Assyrian Churches and Monasteries in northern Iraq ( Memento from January 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), therein Dair Mar Mattai Monastery on the website Christians of Iraq (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Michael Goldfarb: Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005).
- ^ "Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple" by Lawrence H. Schiffman
- ↑ Andrzej Halemba , Xavier Bisits: Life after ISIS: New challenges to Christianity in Iraq. Results from ACN's survey of Christians in the liberated Nineveh Plains. . Aid to the Church in Need , June 2020. p. 15.
- ^ Primates of The Universal Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch & All the East .