Miskinta Church

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The Church of the Holy Mother of God or Church of Mary ( Armenian Սուրբ Աստվածածին եկեղեցի Surb Astwazazin jekeghezi , Arabic كنيسة والدة الله المقدسة or كنيسة سورب أسدوادزادزين في بغداد), also Miskinta Church , Meskenta Church (Մեսկենթա եկեղեցին,كنيسة مسكينته, also كنيسة مسكنتة) or Shirin Church (Շիրին եկեղեցի,كنيسة شيرين), is a church in the Iraqi capital Baghdad , which belongs to the diocese of Iraq of the Armenian Apostolic Church . With its original construction period from 1639 to 1640, it is considered to be the oldest surviving church in Baghdad, but most of its structural fabric dates from the 1960s.

Location

The Armenian Apostolic Miskinta Church is located about 400 m northeast of the banks of the Tigris at 46 m above sea level, about 150 m northeast of Maidan Square or al-Mīdan (ساحة الميدان or short الميدان, "The square") and the ar-Raschid-Straße (شارع الرشيد) in the shadow of the much larger, almost immediately southeastern Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works in the district of Baghdad, also called al-Mīdan.

history

The Armenian community in Baghdad had its beginnings in the 17th century, when many Armenians emigrated to Mesopotamia from Isfahan and Persian Azerbaijan as a result of persecution after the death of Shah Abbas I. In the years 1639 and 1640 the Armenian Apostolic Church of Our Lady, Armenian Surp Asdvadzadzin, was completed in Baghdad . According to tradition, it was an Armenian general of the Ottoman army, Kevork Nazaretian (Kevork Nazarian, Gog Nazar), who, against the promise of the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV. , To receive a plot of land for this church and a cemetery for the Armenian community Destroyed the city gate of Baghdad in 1638 in the fight against the Persians and thus enabled the victory of the Ottomans. It is also said that Kevork Nazaretian found the remains of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste and brought them to his Armenian church in Baghdad. Here Kevork placed the relics in a niche in the church wall to the right of the front door.

The church was also known under the names Miskinta, Meskenta or Schirin ( Շիրին ). It has been renovated and rebuilt several times, particularly in the 19th century. As small and modest as it was, it had the function of a cathedral for the small Armenian community in Iraq . After the Armenian genocide , the Armenian population in Baghdad increased greatly due to refugees from what is now Turkey, and a larger main church was needed. Between 1954 and 1957, the Cathedral of Saint Gregory the Illuminator was built on a large plot of land owned by the Armenian Apostolic Church with donations from the two Armenian philanthropists Simon M. Gharibian and Calouste Gulbenkian , so that the Miskinta Church was no longer the main Armenian church in Baghdad .

In the years 1967-1970 the Miskinta Church under the Armenian Catholicos of was Echmiadzin , Vazgen I. , and the Archbishop of Baghdad, Asoghik Ghazarian comprising renewed. In 1968 the dilapidated building was in fact demolished and then replaced by a new church of the same name. Thus the original character of the church was lost. During the renovation of the church, the eight-sided marble reliquary with the bones of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, on which the year 1663 was engraved, was found and placed in the original place in the newly built walls.

Dispute over the authorship of the church

The Armenian Apostolic Church is the registered owner of the Miskinta Church and uses it for church services, which is based on the establishment of the church by the Armenian General Kevork Nazaretian. The Assyrian Church of the East , however, repeatedly denied Armenian historiography and claimed to have founded this church itself. The Assyrian Father Buṭrus Ḥaddād (بطرس حداد) claims in his textbook The Churches and Monasteries of Baghdad (كنائس بغداد ودياراتها, Baghdad 1994) that the church was built between 1616 and 1628, over a decade before the foundation claimed by the Armenian Apostolic Church. The church was also confiscated several times by the Ottoman authorities and only returned against payment of a ransom. According to Assyrian historiography, the church was returned to the church that could pay more money for it, and that was the Armenian Apostolic Church.

architecture

The Armenian Apostolic Miskinta Church is located within a building complex surrounded by high walls. A portal on the north side of the church leads through a small courtyard to the church, which surrounds a larger courtyard with the outbuildings. The single-nave church has a rectangular floor plan, vaults with four barrel roofs running across the building , at the lateral ends of which there are crescent-shaped windows, and is oriented northwest-southeast. At the southeast end is the altar and above it a drum with an octagonal cross-section and a pyramid-shaped dome in the style of Armenian churches, behind it the apse with baptistery and sacristy. At the northwest end there is a side bell tower and a narthex that leads into the church, with domes in the same style and a cross on each dome. There is a gallery above the entrance, where the clergy and deacons sing mass. The new church building is made of brick and concrete. The church walls have niches in which stone slabs with Armenian inscriptions or crosses are partially embedded - one of them from 1750. To the right of the entrance is the marble niche with the bones of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste , decorated with Armenian inscriptions from 1663 and behind a finely forged golden grille.

Holy feasts

Pilgrims and other foreign worshipers come especially to commemorate the relic of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste and for the feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15th.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Pascal Meguesyan: The church Sourp Asdvadzadzin in Baghdad (Church of the Holy Mother of God, “Miskinta”). Mesopotamia Heritage, March 2018.
  2. ↑ R. Hrair Dekmejian: The Armenian Diaspora , in: Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.): The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. St. Martin's Press, New York 1997. p. 427.
  3. ↑ a b Florence Avakian: Iraq's Armenian Primate Visits US. The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, September 12, 2012.
  4. ↑ Old Churches and Monasteries: The Armenian Orthodox Church (Meskenta Church). Tourism in Iraq, accessed December 4, 2017.
  5. ↑ Pascal Meguesyan: The Armenian Apostolic Cathedral of Sourp Krikor Loussavoritch in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, March 2018.
  6. ↑ Old Churches and Monasteries, Baghdad. AtlasTours.Net, 2013.

Coordinates: 33 ° 20 ′ 45.7 "  N , 44 ° 23 ′ 11.9"  E