Showing posts with label Syriac Churches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syriac Churches. Show all posts

Monday, June 14, 2021

Turkey | Midyat

The city of Midyat, about thirty-seven miles east-northeast of Mardin, is in the middle of Tur Abdin, the old Syriac Christian heartland located in the mountains and plateaus just north of the Mesopotamian plain. Many Syriacs migrated out of the area in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the old Syriac quarter in Midyat was largely abandoned. A modern Kurdish city grew up nearby. A few Syriacs have drifted back to the town in the twenty-first century—according to local sources about 130 Christian Syriac people now live in the Old Town. There is also reportedly a small Syriac Jewish population. Kurds also live in the Old Town, and in fact I did not encounter any Syriac Christians. Locals say they do not engage in casual encounters with tourists. 
 The old Syriac Christian quarter of Midyat (click on photos for enlargements).
 Syriac Christian Church undergoing renovations
 Steeple of Syriac Christian Church. Note the characteristic teardrop design on one side of the steeple.
 A private residence utilizing the teardrop motif
Street scene in Midyat. I don’t know why, but I kept expecting Joseph and Mary and their little toddler to come walking around the corner. 
  Typical street scene in Midyat
 Typical street scene in Midyat
 The old bazaar in Midyat. The store fronts on the right are all boarded up. 
 The entrance to what is apparently a private residence. The stonework of tawny limestone appears to be new. The art of stone masonry and carving is alive and well in Midyat. There are numerous new stone buildings with elaborate carved decorations in the Kurdish part of Midyat. 
 We walked half a mile or so in the brutal heat to the Mor Abraham & Mor Hobel Monastery, which supposedly contains a 1700 year-old church, only to find that the entire complex was closed to the public that day. 
 An old Syriac mansion which has been turned into a museum, cultural center, and conference hall. It and the nearby streets also serve as the settings of a popular Turkish soap opera called “Sila”. Curiously, Mardin was also used as an open-air set for a Turkish soap opera. 
A room in the museum made up as a traditional Syriac Audience Chamber. The local Syriac patriarch sat in the chair at the end of the room. Petitioners knelt on the carpets and pleaded their cases. 
 One room in the museum is a traditional Syriac bridal suite made up for the wedding night. Enough to make anyone want to get married. 
 Kurdish man who drove me to Midyat. His regular job is as an imam in a mosque in the city of Batman. He is the proud father of eight children. 
 Kurdish girls hamming it up. They spoke Kurdish, of course, but my driver claimed they did not speak Turkish at all. They were eager to practice English, however, which they learn from watching TV.
Kurdish girl 

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Iraq | Yezidis | Peacock Angel |Shambhala



Things can't get worse than this: Iraqi civilians are escaping into Syria to get off a northern mountain wheretthey've been trapped without food or water for weeks. Between 20,000 to 30,000 minority Yazidis have found a safe passage through Syria and back into Iraqi Kurdistan, assisted by Kurdish guerrilla forces. Meanwhile, American and British missions have been dropping emergency relief Mt. Sinjar and U.S. has launched air strikes on Islamic State militants nearby.


As anyone who pays even cursory attention to the news now knows the United States is airdropping humanitarian aide to the Yezidis in Iraq. See US Drops New Aid To Iraqis Fleeing Militant Surge if by some chance you are not up to speed on this. The fleeing Iraqis in this case are Yezidis, although of course Syriac Christians are also fleeing from the Jihadists in Iraq. I think I first became aware of the Yezidis when I read about them in the book Meetings With Remarkable Men by twentieth century magus George Gurdjieff back in the early 1970s. Then in  2009 I met a Yezidi in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, where he was working in a carpet store. I had my laptop with me and he asked to see a post I had made about his store—there is wi-fi in the Grand Bazaar—and after he had seen that post he began surfing through other of my blog entries. Suddenly he stopped and blurted out, “What is this!?!” It was a Short Post About Yezidis. “How do you know about Yezidis?” he demanded. He actually seem shocked that I should know about anything about this subject. I said that I read about them in books and had seen various material about them on the internet. After some hemming and hawing he finally admitted that he himself was a Yezidi. He said that for various reasons he usually did not tell tourists like myself who came into his store about this, but since I already knew about Yezidis he felt he could tell me. Admittedly he was not too eager to share his beliefs, but he did offer to take me to eastern Turkey to met his relatives if I was so inclined. 

According to One Source, “The religion is little known to outsiders but contains elements of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and also includes the veneration of the Peacock Angel.” What, you are wondering, is the Peacock AngelAccording To Yezidis:
Tawsi Melek, the “Peacock Angel” and “Peacock King,” is the most import deity of the Yezidis. But he is not just the possession of the Yezidis, he belongs to the entire world. The Yezidis believe that they possess the oldest religion on Earth, the primeval faith that features Tawsi Melek, and that all other traditions are related to them through the Peacock Angel. They contend that Tawsi Melek is the true creator and ruler of the universe, and therefore a part of all religious traditions. He does not, however, always manifest within these diverse traditions as a peacock. Tawsi Melek has taken on many other forms throughout time. The Yezidis do not believe that the Peacock Angel is the Supreme God. The Supreme God created him as an emanation at the beginning of time. He was brought into manifestation in order to give the invisible, transcendental Supreme God a vehicle with which to create and administer the universe. Tawsi Melek is thus a tangible, denser form of the infinite Supreme God. In order to assist Tawsi Melek in this important role, the Supreme Creator also created six other Great Angels, who were, like the Peacock Angel, emanations of the Supreme God and not separate from him. Tawsi Melek was, therefore, both the first form of the Supreme God and one of the Seven Great Angels, which is a cosmic heptad mentioned within many religious traditions. The Jews, Christians, Persian, Egyptians all have their seven angels and creators. In the Meshefê Re, the Yezidis “Black Book,” there is one passage that describes the Seven Great Angels and associates their creation with the seven days of Creation. The text first states that the Supreme God first created a pearl containing the substance or substratum of the soon-to-be physical universe, ostensibly referring to the molten mass preceding the “Big Bang” championed by modern physics.
 The Peacock Angel
One of the manifestations of the Peacock Angel in human form is believed to be Shaykh Adi ibn Musafir al-Umawi. He was born in 1070 in what now Lebanon. He studied in Baghdad but soon took up the life of a recluse in upper Mesopotamia. He eventually became a Sufi, but also adhered to the Zoroastrian beliefs still prevalent in the area. His syncretistic tendencies and saintliness soon attracted the attention of local Yezidis, who recognized him as a manifestation or incarnation of the Peacock Angel. He died in 1162 at the age of ninety and was entombed in a mausoleum in a village near Lalish, Iraq. His mausoleum and shrine exists to this day and has become one of the main Yezidi pilgrimage sites. 
The Mausoleum of  Shaykh Adi ibn Musafir al-Umawi near Lalash (not my photo)
The Jihadists in Upper Mesopotamia have destroyed many shrines in the region, perhaps most notably the Tomb of Jonah, Jonah being the belly-of-the-whale-guy who makes an appearance in both the Bible and the Quran. Christian churches, Shiite Mosques, and Sufi holy places have also been targeted. Jihadists May Have Already Captured The Mosul Dam above the city of Mosul. Lalash is just twenty-five miles northeast the breast of the Mosul Dam. If the Jihadists reach Lalash they will undoubtedly destroy the mausoleum and shrine of Shaykh Adi ibn Musafir al-Umawi. 

For photos of Lalish see Visit The Holy City Of The Iraqi Religious Minority That ISIS Is Threatening With Destruction (allow the ad to run for 15 seconds)

The Peacock Angel Manifests Itself In Many Religions, including Buddhism, and is believed to occasionally incarnate as the King of Shambhala:
In Tibet the Peacock Angel appears to be manifest as Amitibha, the peacock-riding dhyanibuddha who sits upon his Peacock Throne in the heaven of Sukhavati and occasionally takes a physical incarnation as the King of the World in legendary Shambhala, the land of immortals that flies the Peacock Flag. Shambhala, meaning the “Place of happiness,” is a place designed as eight territories or “petals” and recognized to be the heart chakra of planet Earth. In the center of the planetary heart chakra is the palace of the King of Shambhala, who thus functions as not only planetary monarch but soul of the world (just as the human soul resides within the human heart chakra). According to one legend, the Peacock Angel not only spread his colors around the globe but additionally merged his spirit with that of the Earth and became the world soul. Thus, his physical body is the Earth and his will is reflected in the actions of all creatures that live upon the face of the Earth.  

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Turkey | Mesopotamia | Mardin | Mor Behnam and Mort Sara Church

My first morning in Mardin I wandered out of my “butik” hotel—almost every hotel in Mardin claims to be a “butik” (boutique) hotel—at six o’clock, just as the sun was coming up. 
Gazi Konagi “Butik Otel”—Boutique Hotel (click on photos for enlargements). 
Three hundred feet above to the right the sun was just illuminating the cliffs and walls of the Mardin Citadel. 
Mardin Citadel looming above the town
Another view of the Citadel
A few hundred feet down the road I noticed a tea house called Camli Kösk Kiraat Hanesi, apparently the only place open on the street open at this hour. Although there was some very up-scale hotels—“butik” of course—nearby, this place was rustic: wobbly old tables and rickety wooden chairs, with faded black and white photos of local notables in what looked like nineteenth century suits on the walls. Around two tables laden with tea glasses codgers and graybeards played cards. Whether they had been there all night or were just early risers was unclear. The card game looked like it might have been going on for years. A short bald-headed man in his sixties came up to my table with arms outspread, smiling broadly, eyes twinkling, as if I were an old acquaintance who has just returned to town.  “Please, please, sit. My name is Sharif. What is your language? German? . . . English, you say? I speak Arabic—I am Arab—Turkish, Kurdish, little French, very little English . . . Please, tea? Turkish coffee?” 

I ordered Turkish coffee with a little sugar. As the man bustled off several of the ancient card players slowly swiveled their heads in my direction and stared at me. Several give me tentative nods and waves. I got the feeling I qualified as an event in this coffee house. Sharif brought my coffee along with half a glass of water. “Do you have Mirra? I asked. Sharif clapped his hands in apparent delight. “You like mirra? he beamed. “Of course, of course, we have mirra, one moment please.” He returned a couple of minutes with a small metal pitcher and a small espresso-sized cup. Mirra is highly concentrated coffee with the consistency of a light syrup. He poured a small splash of the tarry black liquid into the cup and held it out to me. From a Kurdish acquaintance of mine I knew that mirra etiquette required that I take the cup directly from his hand—he would not place it on the table—and toss back the mirra in one go, like a shot of whiskey, then hand the cup back. If you wanted more you went through the motions again. Hardcore mirra addicts sometimes did four or five shots at a time, the equivalent, I was told, of twelve or fifteen cups of regular coffee. I had two shots, then settled back to finish my Turkish coffee. This was very similar to my usual breakfast while traveling of three shots of espresso with a latte grande chaser. (Before anyone leaves a comment reminding me of my past Diatribes Against Coffee Drinkers, allow me to point out that at home in my hovel in Ulaanbaatar I am strictly a Tea Drinker. It is extremely difficult to find good tea while traveling, however [outside of China at least], so while wandering I tend to indulge in coffee). 

Braced up by mirra and Turkish coffee, the coffee world’s equivalent of a boilermaker—a shot of whiskey and a beer—I headed back out onto the street (the Turkish coffee cost 1.5 lira (71 cents), compared with four to six lira in Istanbul, and another lira for the mirra). A few hundred feet past the town square, where a few early morning mini-buses were picking up passengers, a sign on the side a building pointed the way up a side street to the Mor (saint) Behnam and Mort (female saint) Sara Church. The narrow street led up the hill to a stone portal opening into the courtyard of the church. 
Street leading to Mor Behman Church
I went in and down on a low stone wall. The place appeared to be deserted, but the still of the early morning I soon made out the sound of a low monotonous chant, like the droning of bees. Following the sound, I entered a smaller courtyard and what appeared to be the main part of the church. The door to the church was closed and bolted, but putting my ear to it I could clearly hear a chanted liturgy. I wanted to knock but I did not have the nerve to interrupt. Returning to main courtyard I sat again on the low stone wall and performed my own morning orisons, although admittedly not those dedicated to the Galilean or his alleged Father. Soon a young man in jeans and Nikes strode by and into the small outbuilding housing the steeple of the church. Then he rang the church bell for about a minute. Church bells may have first tolled on this site 1445 year ago. 
Outbuilding and steeple of the Church. According to the caretaker, this part of the church may date back to the sixth century.
The story of church begins with Mor Mathai (i.e., Saint Matthew, but obviously not the Matthew of Twelve Disciples fame), who was born in the early fourth-century near Amida (modern-day Diyarbakir) just north of Tur Abdin. The region was then part of the newly established Byzantine (East Roman) Empire. Under the first Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) Christianity had been declared the official religion of the Empire. Monasteries dedicated to the now officially sanctioned religion sprung up in the Tur Abdin region and Mathai entered one of the these. Then in 361 the nephew of Constantine, Julian “the Apostate”, became emperor of the Byzantine Empire. (For a marvelously entertaining fictional portrayal of this intriguing character see the novel Julian, by Gore Vidal; of Greco-Roman persuasion himself, Vidal was sympathetic to Julian.) 

Appalled by what he perceived to be the deleterious effects of Christianity on Byzantine society, Julian attempted to undo the work of his uncle by introducing his own idiosyncratic blend of Greco-Roman polytheism and neo-Platonic paganism. In early 362 he issued an edict guaranteeing freedom of religion, which in effect ended Christianity’s status as the official religion of the Empire. Although all religions were now supposed to be equal before the law, Julian obviously favored the followers of the old Greco-Roman gods. Christians were stripped of the rights and privileges they had enjoyed under previous emperors and before long outright persecutions of “Galileans”—Julian’s term for Christians—commenced. (Himself a writer of some note, Julian penned a polemic against Christianity entitled Against the Galileans which is still in print today and gets four star reviews on amazon.com.) Anti-Christian sentiment eventually reached the Tur Abdin region and Mathai and other monks were forced to flee south, beyond the reach of Julian and his paganish minions. (Also see The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World.)

Mathai eventually found refuge at Mount Alfaf, a mountain looming above the Nineveh plain about eighteen miles north of current-day Mosul in Iraq. This region was then part of Persian Sassanian Empire, where Zoroastrianism was the favored religion. Christianity was not officially recognized as a permissible religion in the Sassanian Empire until 409, but even before then Christians were tolerated, especially those who had fled from the Byzantines, the long-standing enemy of the Sassanians. In this environment Mathai found refuge. He built a hermitage on the side of Mt. Alfaf and eventually earned a reputation as a holy man and healer. Soon people were streaming to his hermitage to receive his blessing and be healed of their mental and physical afflictions.

One day Behnam appeared at Mor Mathai’s hermitage. Behnam was the son of the ruler of Abiadene, a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia located between two tributaries of the Tigris River; the Great Zab River, which originates in Anatolia, near Lake Van, and the Lesser Zab, which finds its source in the Zagros Mountains of Iran. The capital of Abiadene was Arbela (Arbil, in current-day Iraq). Once part of ancient Assyria, Abiadene eventually fell under of the sway of the Parthian Empire, later the Roman Empire, and finally, by the beginning of the second century a.d., the Iranian Sassanians. Although the area soon became a stronghold of Syriac Christianity, Behnam’s father, Sennacherib, espoused Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Sassanians. 

One day Behnam decided to go on a hunting trip to Mt. Alfaf region, in the north of Abiadene. He soon spotted a large deer and set out in pursuit of it. The deer led Behnam and his party to a valley just below Mt. Alfaf before it managed to escape. They camped in the valley and that night Behnam had a dream in which an angel appeared and told Behnam that there was a man living on the mountain who could show him the way to eternity. The next day Behnam climbed the mountain and came to Mor Mathai’s hermitage. Here he saw the deer which he had followed the previous day. He now noticed that it had a cross emblazoned on its forehead. Behnam then met Mor Mathai, who introduced him to the Christian Gospels and promised him that whoever believed in Jesus, the son of God, would be rewarded with eternal life. Behnam did not convert to Christianity at this time, but he had been impressed by Mathai’s saintliness and apparent healing powers. Before returning home he asked Mathai to come go to Arbela and treat his sister Sara, who was suffering from leprosy. Mor Mathai eventually traveled to Arbela but he did not enter the city. Instead, Behnam brought his sister out of the city to meet him. Mor Mathai told Sara about the miracles which Jesus had supposedly performed and instructed her in the teachings of Christianity. She decided to convert to Christianity and allowed Mor Mathai to baptize her. When she emerged from the baptism she was, according to legend, cured of her leprosy. Inspired by this apparent miracle, Behnam and forty of his companions also decided to be baptized and became Christians. (An alternative version of this legend suggests that Sara herself traveled to Mor Mathai’s hermitage at Mt. Alfaf and was cured of leprosy there. According to this variant Behnam, his forty companions, and Sara were all baptized together at Mt. Alfaf) 

Mor Mathai warned Behnam and his sister that they might be subjected to persecution by the Zoroastrians of Abiadene, but they averred that they would be happy to die as martyrs. When King Sennacherib heard that his son and daughter had converted he was infuriated, and he ordered them to renounce Christianity. They refused and attempted to flee to Mt. Alfaf and seek refuge with Mor Mathai. Soldiers sent by Sennacherib in pursuit of Behnam and his forty companions and his sister eventually caught up with them near Nimrud, in what is now Iraq, and killed them all. This took place in 350. According to legend, before they died both Behnam and Sara prayed that their father would also convert to Christianity. Soon afterwards Sennacherib fell seriously ill, and in desperation he sent for Mor Mathai. The holy man cured the king, who then decided to convert to Christianity himself. Thus were Behnam’s and Sara’s final prayers answered. 

The grateful Sennacherib later donated land near the south summit of Mt. Alfaf to Mathai. In 363 Mathai founded a monastery on the site. This monastery, named after Mor Mathai, eventually became famous for its Scriptorium, which contained an extensive collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts. From the eleventh through nineteenth centuries the monastery was looted numerous times by Kurds who lived in the area, but it still exists to this day. Each September 14th Christians of various Eastern (non-Chalcedonian) sects would meet at the monastery to commemorate the day of Mor Mathai’s death. Whether this tradition still exists in the unsettled conditions of modern-day Iraq is unclear. Mor Mathai’s original hermitage, where he first met with Behnam, is also said to still exist. In the sixth century a Persian merchant built a shrine on the hill near Nimrud where Behnam and his party were martyred. Later a monastery grew up on the site. The monastery reportedly still exists and is now administered by Syriac Catholics.

The church dedicated to Saint Behnam and Saint Sara in Mardin was built in 569 a.d. on what was previously the site of a sun-worshippers’ temple. The church is still used by the Syriac Orthodox community in Mardin and is the headquarters of the metropolitan bishop of Mardin. 
The Church of Saint Behnam and Saint Sara
Plaque in the wall of church displaying Syriac script. Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, the language that was spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, nominal figurehead of the Galileans.
Plaque in the wall of church displaying Syriac script
Residence on the church grounds constructed with region’s characteristic tawny limestone.