Salamas
Coordinates: 38 ° 12 ' N , 44 ° 46' E
Salamas (Salmas; Persian سلماس) is a plain and region in West Azerbaijan / Iran north of Urmia , named after the Armenian settlement of the same name abandoned in 1828 , the remains of which were later given the name Kohnashahr ( alias Haftvan). The main town of the area was the Muslim Dilman , a Mongolian founding , destroyed by an earthquake in 1920 and replaced with the same function by Shapur , 1 km away .
Church history
The Johannes monastery near Salamas was in the 16th and 17th centuries the seat of several Katholikoi - patriarchs of the East Syrian " Church of the East " of the younger, then still Catholic Sulaqa line ("Patriarchate of the Mountains").
The Metropolitan of Salamas has been using the official name of Išo'yahb since the 17th century. He resided in the village of Khosrova (alias Khosroabad), 3 km east of the town . The diocese had long been part of the Chaldean Catholic Church . As coadjutor with the right to succeed the aged Archbishop Melchizedek Mar Išo'yahb († 23 August 1859) in 1838 the later "Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans", Nikolaus Zaya , who was born in Khosrova and returned to his home village in 1846, was appointed there with Giwargis Augustinus Barshina (* 1814; † 23 June 1890), the incumbent coadjutor and from 1848 successor to Melchizedek, rivaled.
In 1844 French military missionaries (Vinzentines) settled in Khosrova , as Urmia was temporarily closed to them. With them Khosrova became the center of Catholicism in Iran (“La petite Rome de Perse”). They built a church, a hospital, a boys' seminary and a seminary . Numerous local priests of both rites, the Latin and the East Syrian , emerged from these , including the learned Paul Bedjan († June 9, 1920 in Cologne), who refused the bishop's seat from Salamas, which he had repeatedly offered, in favor of his work as an editor of Syrian writings. However, in 1896 he bought feudal rights over the village and thus became the secular lord of Khosrova. In the wake of the resulting difficulties, Bishop Isaak Yahballaha Khudabakhash of Salamas (1930- † 1940 Archbishop of Urmia and Salamas), appointed in 1894, resigned from his office on October 12, 1908, exasperated. The priest of the Chaldean Archdiocese of Urmia, established in 1890 and later Muslim David Benjamin Keldani , who gave his “speech of the century” on January 1, 1900 in the local Armenian church , also intervened in the local disputes . In it he urged the Christians of the various Eastern churches active in the region to trust their own strength and not to rely on the help of foreign missionaries.
In 1918 Salamas was the scene of the bloody events around Mar Shimun XXI. , the Catholicos Patriarchs of the autocephalous "Church of the East" ("Nestorians"). He was killed on March 16, 1918 in Kohnashahr and buried in the Armenian cemetery in Khosrova. The incumbent Chaldean bishop of Salamas, Butrus' Azīz Ho (Pierre Aziz) (1910–1924; * 1866, † 1937) also took part in the celebrations. Some of the Chaldeans fled to Tbilisi prior to the war .
After the First World War , the Diocese of Salamas was effectively united with the Archdiocese of Urmia of the Patriarchate of Babylon .
traffic
A train station located here on the Van – Tabriz railway line , the only rail link between Iran and Turkey, is called " Salamas ".
Sons and daughters of Salamas
- Emmanuel Agassi (born 1930), boxer
- Paul Bedjan (1838–1920), Roman Catholic priest and orientalist
literature
- Charles-Alexandre de Challaye (author), Jean-Michel Hornus (ed.): Mémoire sur l'état actuel et l'avenir de la religion catholique et des missions lazaristes et protestantes en Perse (Cahiers d'Études Chrétiennes Orientales; vol. 8/9). Action Chrétienne en Orient, Strasbourg 1970/73, 100 ff.
- Aristide Chatelet: La Mission Lazariste in Perse . In: Revue d'Histoire des Missions . Vol. 10 (1933) pp. 491-510; Vol. 11 (1934) pp. 82-108. 242-269. 384-432. 567-595; Vol. 12 (1935) pp. 77-107. 250-257. 427-444; Vol. 13 (1936) pp. 397-426. 573-586; Vol. 14 (1937) pp. 91-107. 246-257. 389-394. 514-520; Vol. 15 (1938) pp. 92-98. 428-432; Vol. 16 (1939) pp. 62-88. 267-272. 390-401.
- Jean Maurice Fiey: Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus. Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux (Beirut texts and studies; vol. 49). Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-05718-8 , p. 127. 142.
- David Wilmshurst: The Ecclesiastical Organization of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium; 582, Subs. 104). Peeters, Leuven 2000, ISBN 90-429-0876-9 , pp. 315-318. 325-328.
- Hubert de Mauroy: Lieux de culte (anciens et actuels) des églises 'syriennes orientales' dans le diocese d'Ourmiah-Salmas en Iran . In: Parole de l'Orient 3.2 (1972) pp. 313-351.