Mor Gabriel Monastery
Coordinates: 37 ° 19 ′ 19.1 ″ N , 41 ° 32 ′ 18.4 ″ E
 
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Location of the Mor Gabriel Monastery in Turkey |
The Syrian Orthodox Mor Gabriel Monastery ( Syriac Aramaic ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ, also Mar Gabriel Monastery or Qart (a) min Monastery , Deyrulumur Manastırı in Turkish ) is one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world. It is located in Tur Abdin in south-eastern Turkey and is still one of the most important monasteries of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and the seat of the Metropolitan of Tur Abdin Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktaş .
Geographical location
The monastery is located approx. 20 km southeast of the city of Midyat in the barren mountain landscape of the Tur Abdin (translated "mountain of servants", meaning the servants of God) . It is located in the Turkish province of Mardin in Midyat County.
Surname
In the 7th century the monastery got its name, which is still common today, after Bishop Mor Gabriel (Mor: saint), who resided there from 634 to 668. The Syriac-Aramaic name in Latin transcription is Dayro d-mor Gabriel or Dayro d-'umro d-mor Gabriel (German Monastery of Saint Gabriel or Monastery of the Abbey of Saint Gabriel ).
The monastery is also known as the Monastery of Qartmin . Qartmin (Turkish Yayvantepe ) is the name of the neighboring, now Muslim, village.
history
The origins of the monastery are in late antiquity . It was founded in 397 by Shmuel (Samuel) and his disciple Samun (Simon). Its importance grew rapidly, and by the 6th century there were up to 1,000 monks, both local and Coptic , living here . Between 615 and 1049 the bishopric of Tur Abdin was here. The monastery owes its name to one of the bishops , Mor Gabriel from Beth Qustan (in office from 634 to † 667/8). It was named after him in the 7th century.
The monastery was an important center for the Syrian Christians of Tur Abdin. It had a very important library , of which almost nothing has survived today (some manuscripts are kept in the British Library , among others ); the monastery school played an important role in theological education in the region and throughout the Syrian Church . She also trained many high-ranking clergy and scholars, including four patriarchs , one Catholicos, and 84 bishops . Well known was Mor Philoxenos of Mabug († 523), a prominent opponent of Chalcedonism . A quote from him describes the importance of the monastery at that time: Anyone who visits the monastery that was founded by the angel seven times with honor and fear earns the same merit as if he were to visit Jerusalem .
The dome of the monastery, built at the beginning of the 6th century, consists of radially layered bricks and rests on walls made of ashlar and mortar core. The inside diameter of the dome is 11.50 m. It is probably a foundation of the Roman emperor Anastasius , who after 506 gave gifts to numerous Christian churches and monasteries in this region.
The monastery was an independent diocese until 1915 . This year, during the genocide of the Christian minorities, all inhabitants of the monastery were killed by Kurds at the instigation of the Ottoman government .
It was not until 1919 that Syrian Christians could get it again. In the 1950s, renovation and expansion work began and the monastery- internal seminary of the Mor Gabriel monastery was established, which was closed again in 1980 by the Turkish government. In the following decades the water and electricity supply was set up, a road to the monastery was built and a garden was created for the residents to be self-sufficient. A wall was built around the monastery a few years ago to protect the extensive monastery gardens and the areas that are important for the monastery self-sufficiency from invading cattle.
The monastery in this day and age
General
Today the Syrian Orthodox Christians are a minority in Tur Abdin. The monastery is the social and religious center of the Archdiocese of Tur Abdin and a place of pilgrimage . With the ordination of the abbot Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktaş as archbishop in 1995 it became the de facto bishopric of Tur Abdin (instead of Midyat). In 2007, next to the bishop, three monks, around 15 nuns , 40 students and three families of the teachers and the workers who ran the monastery lived within the monastery walls.
In 1997, the governor of the province of Mardin issued a ban on the monasteries Mor Gabriel and Zafaran from hosting foreign guests and teaching Aramaic language and religious instruction . International protests have meanwhile resulted in the ban on accommodation being lifted. Native language lessons in Aramaic are still prohibited.
In 2007, the incumbent abbot of St. Jakob in Salah, Daniel Savci , was kidnapped for two days.
complain
Lands
In 2008, the Mor Gabriel monastery was sued by three Kurdish villages for “illegal settlement”. The plaintiffs contested the monks' claim to the land they had worked for centuries. As part of the resulting legal proceedings, the monastery is currently threatened by state authorities in Turkey with a de facto expropriation and dissolution of the monastery operations. The plaintiffs are supported by local politicians from the ruling AKP . The European Union sent observers to the process.
In May 2009, the monastery won a trial in the Midyat civil court against a surrounding community over administrative borders. The Court of Cassation in Ankara overturned the first instance judgment, which was positive for the monastery, on August 13, 2010 due to the lack of jurisdiction and transferred jurisdiction to the Midyat Administrative Court, where the case is to be opened again.
On June 24th, 2009, in another process, 27 hectares of land were decided in favor of the Forestry Office. The monastery lawyer appealed against this decision. In another process, however, claims by the Midyat tax office were ruled negative. Another process was postponed until the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal of Turkey in the forest matter and decided in mid-January 2011. Some of these lands were awarded to the Turkish state by court order, as the monastery was unable to produce any legally binding documents that would identify it as the owner of the land.
The German government and all parliamentary groups are closely monitoring developments and are committed to preserving the monastery. It is considered a 'litmus test' for Turkey's dealings with religious minorities. On June 13, 2012, the Bundestag will discuss this and decide on two existing motions.
On May 10, 2019, the application to the European Court of Human Rights for the return of the 27 hectare area around the monastery was rejected. The foundation of the monastery then announced further complaints.
Churches, monasteries and cemeteries
In the summer of 2017, the Turkish government took action against the Syrian Orthodox Christians with around 50 expropriations of churches, monasteries and cemeteries, which were returned to the Christians on 23 May 2018, around a year later, after lengthy legal proceedings and protests from the West were.
→ see also freedom of religion in Turkey
Abbots of Mor Gabriel
- Sabo Güneş , until 1962
- Julius Yeshu Çiçek , 1962–1973
- Timotheos Samuel Aktaş , since 1973
See also
literature
- RJ Rummel : Death by Government. Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 , Transactions Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ 1994, 1995 and 1996, ISBN 1-56000-145-3
- Wilhelm Baum : Turkey and its Christian minorities: history - genocide - present , Kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt-Wien 2005, ISBN 3-902005-56-4
- Tessa Hofmann : Persecution, expulsion and extermination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912–1922. Münster, 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7823-6 .
- Shaw, Stanford J. & Ezel Kural Shaw: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975 , in: Shaw, Stanford Jay, History of the Ottomoman Empire and Modern Turkey , Cambridge University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-521-21449-1 & ISBN 0-521-29166-6
- Zeki Joseph: Mor Gabriel from Beth Qustan. Life and legend of a Syrian abbishop from the 7th century . Olms, Hildesheim 2010. ISBN 978-3-487-14476-4
Web links
- [1] and [2] photographs by Gertrude Bell from 1909. Retrieved November 16, 2011
- About Gertrude Bell's visit to Mor Gabriel in May 1909 . Retrieved November 16, 2011
- 1600th anniversary of the Mor Gabriel Monastery
- Oral question from the European Parliament Bernd Posselt, MEP on the planned expropriation
- FAZ: Save the second Jerusalem
Individual evidence
- ↑ Syriac-Aramaic writing in the logo of morgabriel.org . Retrieved November 15, 2011
- ↑ 1600jähriges anniversary of the monastery Mor Gabriel, Note 1 . Retrieved November 15, 2011.
- ↑ Jürgen Rasch: The dome in Roman architecture. Development, Shaping, Construction , in: Architectura , Vol. 15 (1985), pp. 117-139 (126)
- ^ "The abbot of the monastery in Tur Abdin Daniel Savci freed" , Suryoyo Online, November 30, 2007
- ↑ “Save the second Jerusalem!” FAZ.net, April 27, 2009
- ↑ Article on FAZ.net
- ↑ Vatican Radio : Turkey: Judgment against Mor Gabriel , January 28, 2011, accessed on January 31, 2011
- ↑ Application of March 27, 2012, printed matter 17/9185 (PDF file; 75 kB)
- ^ The European Court for Human Rights denies Mor Gabriel its legal right due to formalities. In: Assyria TV. May 10, 2019, accessed May 23, 2019 (Aramaic).
- ↑ Kamuoyuna. In: Facebook. May 21, 2019, accessed May 23, 2019 (Turkish).
- ^ To the public opinion. In: Facebook. May 21, 2019, accessed on May 23, 2019 .
- ↑ http://www.schwaebische.de/politik/ausland_artikel,-Tuerkei-beschlagnahmt-uralte-Kirchen-_arid,10691989.html
- ↑ https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10214868083708643&id=1023483900
- ↑ https://www.domradio.de/themen/kirche-und-politik/2018-05-28/tuerkei-gibt-kloester-und-kirchen-aramaeer-zurueck