Alqosch
| Alqosch | |||
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| location | |||
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| Coordinates | 36 ° 44 ′ N , 43 ° 6 ′ E | ||
| Country |
 Iraq
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| Governorate | " Alqosch " is not supported here | ||
| Basic data | |||
| height | 532 m | ||
| Residents | 10,000 | ||
| Mayoress | Lara Yussif Zara | ||
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Alqosch or Alqusch ( Aramaic ܐܠܩܘܫ, Arabic القوش, DMG al-Qūš ) is an Assyrian city in Iraq . It is located about 30 km north of Mosul in the Nineveh plain of the province of the same name. The name Alqosch is Aramaic and means "The God of Righteousness". The city has been one of the disputed areas of Northern Iraq since 2003 .
history
The history of the place goes back to the old Assyrian Empire , possibly even further back. Alqosch was first mentioned in the time of Sennacherib around 750 BC. BC, in the form of wall paintings in Sennacherib's palace, which was discovered in Tel Qwenjeq.
Alqosch is one of the oldest Christian villages of Iraq, and according to tradition, it has already been through the influence of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century Christian . The population belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East for a long time , but with the schism of 1553 they joined the newly founded Chaldean Catholic Church united with Rome . From 1553 to 1804 the monastery Rabban Hormizd was the residence of the Chaldean Catholicos patriarch in the "Eliya line" ("Patriarchate of the plain") from Eliya VII. (1558–1591) to Eliya XIII. Ishoʿyahb (1778–1804), from which Yohannan VIII. Hormizd , later Patriarch of Babylon (1780–1830), emerged. The small Christian town has experienced many attacks and looting in its history, with the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries being mentioned in particular. In 1828 700 people died of the plague in Alqosch . In 1832 the head of the Rabban Hormizd monastery, Father Gabriel Dambo , was murdered. There were also numerous deaths in a famine in 1879.
In 1960, the church of Mar Gorgis in Alqosch became the cathedral of the newly established Chaldean Catholic diocese of Alqosch ( Dioecesis Alquoshensis Chaldæorum ), which, in addition to the city of Alqosch, includes the northern part of the Nineveh plain . Alqosch is one of the Christian places on the Nineveh Plain that were not taken by Daesh (IS) from 2014 to 2017 , so the city remained unscathed and its residents did not have to flee. Instead, Alqosch took in refugees, including 500 Christian and 150 Muslim families.
In the defense of the city against Daesh in 2014, the Chaldean mayor of Alqosch, Fayez Abed Jawahreh , played a crucial role in an alliance with Christian and Kurdish militias. On July 16, 2017 - shortly before the planned independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan on September 25, 2017 - Mayor Fayez Abed Jawahreh (in some reports called Abdul Micha or al-Jahwary ) following corruption allegations on the instructions of Baschar al-Kiki , the leader of the Provincial Council of Nineveh and member of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of Kurdish President Masud Barzani , deposed and KDP member Adel Amin Omar installed as his successor. There were violent protests from the Christian population of the city. One of the opponents of the KDP action was the Christian Iraqi parliamentarian Yonadam Kanna , general secretary of the Assyrian Democratic Movement . Thereupon the local council of Alqosch, which includes 4 KDP members out of a total of 6 councilors, unanimously elected the Chaldean economist and manager Lara Yussif Zara (also Lara Yousif Zara), who was born in 1982 and who is also a member of the KDP, as mayor. With the election of Zara, a Christian woman became mayor for the first time in Iraq's history. (The capital Baghdad already had a mayor, Zekra Mohammed Alusch , from 2015 , who is, however, Muslim.) However, there were also several demonstrations against the election of Zara, at which Iraqi flags and banners for the Nineveh Plain to remain in Iraq and beyond Kurdistan were shown. On July 15, 2018, Fayez Abed Jawahreh was arrested by Kurdish police forces.
population
Alqosch was able to preserve its largely Christian population in 2019/2020. According to a study by Church in Need published in 2020, the majority of the 6000 residents of Alqosch are Christians. Practically only the Chaldean Catholic Church is present here, whose members call themselves Chaldeans. A large majority of the Christians in the Nineveh Plain speak Surith (“ Syriac ”, Eastern Aramaic ). In terms of their ethnic group, the Syrian / Aramaic speaking residents of Alqosch and other places are often referred to as Assyrians ("Chaldean-rite Assyrians [...] in Alqosh").
Attractions
In the old town of Alqosch there is the Chaldean George Cathedral (Mar Gorgis,كاتدرائية مار كوركيس), the Chaldean church of Mar Micha (كنيسة مار ميخا) and the mausoleum of the Jewish prophet Nahum (قبر النبي ناحوم). About 2 km northeast in the mountains is the Rabban Hormizd monastery (دير الربان هرمزد) and less than 1 km east of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Saaten (دير سيدة الحصاد), both also Chaldean Catholic.
About 3 km west of the city are the ruins of Shayro Meliktha.
The rock dwellings of Alqosh are distributed along the mountainside all the way to the top of the plateau. They are decorated similarly to those of the other colonies in the city of Nineveh .
Identification with Elkosch
According to the thesis of Austen Henry Layard, Elkosch , the birthplace of the prophet Nahum , could be identical to today's Alqosch, as there are not only Assyrian rock carvings in the vicinity, but also a famous monastery with the graves of Christian saints in the neighboring town of Raban Hormuzd Seat. Layard, who toured the area in 1847, wrote: "According to a very general tradition, it contains [Alcosh] the tomb of the prophet Nahum, the Alcoshite, as he is called in the introduction to his prophecies." Layard visited the tomb personally, noted But further: “The building containing the grave is of modern design. Inscriptions or fragments from antiquity cannot be found around this place. I do not know the origin of the tradition and how long it has been connected to the village of Alkosch. ”This thesis is countered by the fact that the circumstances do not match the information that Nahum makes in his book about his homeland.
Sites in Alqosch
Various sites remain important to Alqoschnayes .
- Gu'ppa D'Mmaya (water cave) in the north.
- Gu'ppa Ssmoqa (the red cave) in the north.
- Gu'ppetha D'Toomin (Little Toomin Cave) to the north.
- Gu'ppa D 'Magoar Gama (the Thundering Cave) to the northeast.
- Shweetha D'Gannaweh (Robbers' Night Camp) is a mountain in the north. Some experts on the history of Alqush believe that Shweetha D'Ganaweh is a site of the Assyrian god S ى in.
- Rommta D'Jwannqeh (Hill of Youth) in the northwest.
- Khoosha (the container) in the northwest
- Raoolla D'Mmaya (the water valley) in the west.
- Gu'ppa D'Hattarein (Cave of the Wool Combs).
- Kerrma D'Raysha (the vineyard), the vineyard is on the top of the Bergers.
- Besqeen.
- Galeeya D'Qasha Hanna (the valley of Priest Hanna) in the north.
- Galeeya D'Dayra or Galeeya D'Qadeesha (Valley of the Saints or Valley of the Monastery), a valley leading to the Rabban Hormizd Monastery , in northeast Alqosch.
- Galeeya Dnerba D'Deyoeh (Valley of the Devils) in the east of the Rabban Hormizd monastery.
- Gu'ppetha D'Hllwi (D'Hllabi), where the sheep were milked.
- Gu'ppetha D'Rrabi Rabba, a small cave of the high priests.
Sons and daughters
- Yohannan Hormizd (1760–1838), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. was from 1830 to 1838 as Yohannan VIII. Hormizd, also known under Johannes, Youhannas or John Hormez
- Joseph Audo (also Audu or Oddo) (1790–1878), under the name Joseph VI. Audo Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church
- Joseph Emmanuel II. Toma (1852–1947), Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans
- Paul Cheikho (1906–1989), Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans from 1958 to 1989 under the name of Paul II Cheikho
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ abcnews.go.com
- ↑ a b Pascal Meguesyan: Mar Gorgis Church in Alqosh. Mesopotamia Heritage, June 2018.
- ↑ Cathedral of St. George - Alquoch, Iraq. Gcatholic.org, July 16, 2020, accessed August 22, 2020.
- ↑ 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. pp. 16, 24.
- ↑ Overview of the events in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain as well as the fate of the Christian population who fled there (2014 to spring 2017). Nineveh Reconstruction Committee (NRC) Iraq, Aid to the Church in Need , accessed August 26, 2020.
- ↑ Daniel Gerber: Alqosh mayor deposed - Christians are threatened before the Kurdish referendum. Christian portal Livenet.de, August 6, 2017.
- ↑ Asia / Iraq - The Chaldean Catholic Lara Zara elected Mayor of Alqosh. Agenzia Fides , 28 July 2017.
- ^ Catholic Woman Makes History As The New Mayor Of An Iraqi town. Praiseworld Radio,
- ^ Assyrian Mayor of Alqosh detained and beaten by the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Assyrian Policy Institute, July 17, 2018.
- ↑ 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. pp. 12, 16, 22.
- ^ Ronald Sempill Stafford: The Tragedy of the Assyrian Minority in Iraq. Routledge, New York 2009, reprint of 1935 first edition, p. 187.
- ↑ Sargon Donabed: Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2015. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5 , doi : 10.3366 / edinburgh / 9780748686025.001.0001
- ↑ Austen Henry Layard: Niniveh and its remains . Leipzig 1854, p. 125
- ↑ Austen Henry Layard: Niniveh and its remains . Leipzig 1854, p. 126