Bethel Church (Aleppo)

Armenian Evangelical Bethel Church in Aleppo , 2016

Armenian Evangelical Bethel Church in Aleppo , 2010

The Bethel Church ( Arabic كنيسة بيت ايل, Armenian Բեթելի եկեղեցի ) is a church of the Armenian Evangelical Church in the Syrian city of Aleppo in the Jabriya district.

Location

The Bethel Church of Aleppo is located in the Jabriya district (Jabriya, directly south of Sulaymaniya) on al-Quds Street (Jerusalem Street,شارع القدس, DMG Šāriʿ al-Quds ) on its east side in the central section.

history

The longtime pastor Harutyun Selimian , 2014

The Armenian Evangelical Bethel Congregation was founded by Armenian Evangelical refugees from Marasch (Մարաշ, now Turkey ) who escaped the annihilation of the Armenians there in 1920. The refugees found shelter in Aleppo mainly in the Jabriya and Sulaymaniya districts. The first services took place in 1922. Evangelical missionaries from the USA bought a homestead called al-Hamidiya, where they built a wooden hall with church and school rooms. The parishioners were workers, widows, orphans and young people, because the intelligentsia was the first to succumb to destruction. The community grew with the arrival of more homeless people, and in 1932 about 1,600 people attended the makeshift church. In 1934 the construction of the new Bethel Church, built according to the model of the destroyed Protestant church in Marasch, was celebrated. In 1937 the Bethel Church was given its present form. Harutyun Selimian , who is still active today , came to the Bethel Church in 1992 as a very young pastor.

In contrast to many churches in Aleppo - also in the vicinity - the Bethel Church survived the battle for Aleppo from July 2012 to the expulsion of the Islamists in December 2016 without damage during the civil war in Syria , but lost many of its members by fleeing. Nevertheless, there were church services every Sunday, and the Evangelical Bethel School as well as the other Armenian Evangelical schools could be kept open. According to Pastor Selimian, there were 250 Protestant families in Aleppo in March 2016, and an average of 450 people came to the church service in the Bethel Church. 35 families from the Bethel congregation had left Syria by then. The Bethel congregation in Aleppo achieved great importance through the establishment of the Bethel Polyclinic in June 2013. The congregation also offered the treatment of psychological trauma during the war. At a joint service of the three Armenian Evangelical Churches in Aleppo - the heavily damaged and unusable Immanuel Church , the Martyrs Church and the Bethel Church - in the Bethel Church on April 16, 2017 for the first Easter since the expulsion of the Islamists , led by Simon Der-Sahagian and Harutyun Selimian Aleppo attended about 2000 people. The child and youth work of the church, led by Pastor Harutyun Selimian, among others, is still alive today. On March 1, 2019, a service for the World Women's Day of Prayer took place in the Bethel Church in Aleppo .

Architecture and equipment

Armenian Evangelical Bethel Church and secondary school in Aleppo , 2016

Unlike most of the Protestant churches in Syria, the Bethel Church is a basilica , the upper aisles of which have nine small pointed arched windows on each side and the side aisles have five large pointed arched windows. Above the ogival entrance portal there are two ogive windows on the first floor and one ogive on the second floor, with a cross above on a small pyramid roof. The church walls are neither plastered inside nor outside, so that the light brown bricks are visible.

Facilities

The Bethel Church runs a school, the Bethel School, from kindergarten to 12th grade. Even through the time of the civil war, teaching was continued. In March 2016, 260 children and young people from kindergarten to 12th grade attended the school and were taught by 50 teachers.

The Bethel Polyclinic has existed since June 2013 and was initially operated on the church's own premises. In 2020, the growing polyclinic had to move to a larger building nearby due to lack of space.