St. Theresa Church (Damascus)

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The St. Theresa Church ( Arabic كنيسة القديسة تريزيا or كنيسة القديسة تيريزا) is the church of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the old town of the Syrian capital Damascus .

General

The Theresiakirche stands on a dead end, the "Stahlgasse" (حارة بولاد, DMG Ḥārat Būlād ), in the Christian district in the northeast of the old town about 30 m west of Bāb-Tūmā Street not far from the city gate Bāb Tūmā . The "Stahlgasse" leads from Bāb-Tūmā Street south of the Franciscan monastery in a westerly direction. The rather modest church building stands inconspicuously between the ash-gray residential buildings. Every year on October 1st, the church celebrates the feast of its patron saint Theresa.

Architecture and equipment

The church has a large, flat facade, in the middle of which there is the wooden entrance door under an arch and two windows next to it, also under pointed, elongated Gothic arches. Above the arch is a large, framed stained glass window with stained glass and a cross in the middle. Next to the window on the front there is a marble tablet with inscriptions of Arabic and Chaldean historical figures.

In the church there is a shrine for St. Theresa as well as marble plaques commemorating the donors for the construction and renovation of the church. Above the church door there is a plaque with the inscription: “This church of St. Theresa of the Chaldeans was founded in 1941 by the great philanthropist Būlos Hajjār (بولس حجار) and other benefactors, may God make them happy "(لقد تعمرت كنيسة القديسة تيريزيا للكلدان هذه في سنة ١٩٤١ بهمة المحسن الكبير بلولس حجار والمحاسنيسن جعلهم عال).

history

The church was built in 1941 with donations from the philanthropist Būlos Hajjār and renovated in 1968 and 1979. The Chaldean Catholic Church was hardly present in Damascus for a long time and consisted mainly of people with an Iraqi background. In 2005, numerous refugees from Iraq came to Syria, which opened its borders to the persecuted in its eastern neighbor. According to the Syrian government and UNHCR , there were around 700,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria that year, including many Christians . In 2005, the pastor of the St. Theresa Church was Sarmad Yousef, who was born in Iraq and was 30 years old at the time. Before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 , there were around 100 families in the Chaldean Catholic community in Damascus; in 2005 there were around 2,000 families, most of them from Iraq. In 2008 the number of Christian refugees in Damascus was given as 20,000, the majority of whom were Chaldeans. During the Christmas 2007 service, the small Chaldean Theresa Church in Damascus was overcrowded with 1,500, mostly Iraqi believers. According to the Church, around 7,000 Chaldean families lived in Damascus and the surrounding area. However, a significant number of these Christians did not stay long in Syria but moved on to western countries. According to a report from the Easter service in 2018, shortly after the end of the last bombing of the Christian quarter of Damascus by Islamist rebels in eastern Ghouta , the church had few visitors.

Diocese

The Chaldean Catholic Christians of Damascus and all of Syria are subordinate to the Aleppo eparchy , which in 1957 by bull of Pope Pius XII. was established. The Chaldean Bishop of Syria, Antoine Audo , who has been in office since January 18, 1992 , has his seat in the Saint Joseph Cathedral in Aleppo .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c St. Theresa Church (كنيسة القديسة تيريزا, in Arabic). Qenshrin.com to http://www.alepposuryoye.com (editor of the encyclopedia of churches and monasteries).
  2. ↑ a b Joshua ES Phillips: None of Us Were Like This Before - American Soldiers and Torture. Verso Books, London / New York 2012. p. 145.
  3. ↑ a b c متري هاجي اثناسيو ، قتيبة شهابي ، 2005 ، اديرة وكنائس دمشق وريفها: (بحث ميداني توثيقي تاريخي اثري)[ Mitri Haji Athanasio , Qutaiba Shihabi : Monasteries and churches in Damascus and their landscape (historical archaeological documentary research). Damascus 2005], pp. 78-79.
  4. ^ Iraqi Christians seek peace and security in Syria. Irish Times, March 22, 2005.
  5. ↑ Marta Allevato: Iraqi Refugees: Christmas "the alternative to violence". AsiaNews.it, March 1, 2008.
  6. ↑ Michael Jansen: In the jaws of Syria's conflict, Christian faith prospers. Irish Times, March 31, 2018.
  7. ^ Hidemi Takahashi: Aleppo. In: Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (Eds.): Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Electronic Edition (e-GEDSH). The Syriac Institute, Beth Mardutho 2011.
  8. ↑ St. Joseph's Church, Alep, Syria. Gcatholic.org, January 20, 2020,
  9. ^ Bishop Antoine Audo, SJ Catholic Hierachy, accessed April 25, 2020.

Coordinates: 33 ° 30 ′ 41.9 ″  N , 36 ° 18 ′ 52.7 ″  E