St. Joseph's Cathedral (Qamishli)

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The Cathedral of St. Joseph ( Arabic كاتدرائية القديس يوسف, Armenian Սուրբ Հովսեփ եկեղեցի ) is the cathedral of the Armenian Catholic Church in the Syrian city ​​of Qamishli .

Location

The cathedral stands on the east side of Schukri al-Quwatli Street (شارع شكري القوتلي) opposite the Qamishli hospital and about 300 m northeast of the Qamishli football stadium (ملعب القامشلي), where Al-Jihad SC (نادي الجهاد الرياضي) and around 500 m west of the Jaghdschagh River (نهر جقجق). To the south-west of the church is the corresponding Armenian private school "Peace" (مدرسة سلام الخاصة للارمن), while there is another school further southwest on the other side of Schukri al-Quwatli Street.

history

Qamishli, which was newly founded as a city on the new border with Turkey after the First World War, grew strongly in the 1920s and 1930s due to the influx of Armenian and Assyrian refugees following the genocide of the Syrian Christians and the Armenians . As a result of the settlement of Christians in Qamishli - as in al-Hasakah and al-Malikiyah - Christians formed the majority in the middle of the 20th century , of which the Armenians and, among them, the Armenian Catholics were a minority. The old Armenian bishoprics in Turkey were orphaned due to the complete disappearance of the Armenians (with the exception of Istanbul), while in Qamishli, which once belonged to the now defunct Mardin Archeparch , an Armenian-Catholic community emerged for the first time. In 1938 the Patriarchal Vicariate Qamishli was founded with its seat in the new Armenian Catholic Church of St. Joseph, which was founded on June 29, 1954 by Pope Pius XII. to the eparchy Qamishli and the church of St. Joseph was raised to a cathedral.

During the civil war in Syria that began in 2011 , the threat to the city of Qamishli from Islamist terror groups, especially Daesh (IS) from 2013 , led to great uncertainty and fear among the population. Qamishli came under the control of the secular Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG), from 2015 as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces , which were able to hold the city against the Islamist enemies. Nevertheless, the threat persisted and grew as a result of the occupation of Syrian territory by Turkish occupation forces and their Islamist allies, in particular as a result of the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria in 2019 . In 2010 there were still 1250 Armenian Catholics living in Qamishli, in 2019 there were only 500 (for comparison: the parish of the Armenian Apostolic Church fell in the same period from 5000 to 2000 members with a population of the city of 184,231 in 2004) . Before the war the cathedral was full for church services, in February 2020 in St. Joseph there were partially empty pews in a church that was only a third full.

On November 11, 2019, shortly after the Turkish aggression against northern Syria, the 43-year-old pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Father Hovsep Hanna Bedoyan, was shot together with his father Apraham Hanna Bedoyan by motorcycle shooters while they were on their way after Deir ez-Zor , where they wanted to inspect the reconstruction of a destroyed Armenian Catholic Church. Daesh confessed to this crime shortly afterwards. On the same day, three bombs exploded in Qamishli, one of them directly in front of St. Joseph's Cathedral. A total of six people died as a result, but in this case no one from the Armenian Catholic or any Armenian community was affected. Hovsep Hanna Bedoyan was married and had three children. On November 12, 2019, he was buried with a funeral service in his St. Joseph Cathedral. The Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, Boutros Marayati , made it clear that, contrary to what had been hoped, the war was not yet over and that Hovsep and Hanna Bedoyan had died as Christian martyrs . Marayati linked the crime to Turkey's attempt to prevent the memory of the Armenian genocide. Bedoyan tried to rebuild a community in Deir ez-Zor, a place with a particularly high number of victims of the genocide, which Turkey in particular does not want. The Turkish government condemned the crime, but not without emphasizing that the area was under the control of Kurdish "terrorists".

Diocese and bishop

The Cathedral of Qamishli is the seat of the Armenian Catholic Eparchy Qamishli ( Eparchia Kamechliensis Armenorum ). In 2015 it comprised around 2500 believers in two parishes with three priests and one deacon and belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Cilicia. Since the resignation of Bishop Joseph Arnaouti, born in 1936, in 1992, it has been led by the Archbishop of Aleppo, Boutros Marayati , as Apostolic Administrator .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Syrian Christians in Northeast Syria. Mar Gabriel Association, 2006, accessed April 21, 2020.
  2. ^ A b Armenian Diocese of Kameshli, Syria - Archbishop Boutros Marayati, Bishop Joseph Arnaouti. Gcatholic.org, May 12, 2020, accessed June 8, 2020.
  3. ↑ Otmar Oehring: On the situation and perspectives of Christians in north and north-east Syria. Konrad Adenauer Foundation , 2019, p. 82.
  4. ↑ Jane Arraf: It's A Dangerous Time For Christians In Northeastern Syria. NPR, Feb 12, 2020.
  5. ^ Raffi Elliott: Armenian Catholic Priest Killed in Syria, Armenian Community Targeted. November 12, 2019.
  6. ↑ Siranush Ghazanchyan: Bomb detonates near Armenian Catholic Church in Qamishli, casualties reported. Public Radio of Armenia, November 11, 2019.
  7. ↑ Armenian priest and his father murdered in Deir ez Zor: “For us they are marshals; the war is not over ”. Agenzia Fides, November 12, 2019.
  8. ↑ Marta Petrosillo, John Newton: Syria: Murdered priest was gunned down for his faith. Independent Catholic News, November 13, 2019.
  9. ^ Turkey condemns killing of Armenian Catholic priest in Syria. Hürriyet Daily News, November 14, 2019.
  10. ↑ Cathédrale Saint-Joseph / Cathedral of St. Joseph - Qamishli, Syria. Gcatholic.org, May 19, 2020, accessed June 8, 2020.

Coordinates: 37 ° 3 ′ 3.7 ″  N , 41 ° 13 ′ 17.9 ″  E ,