Tag: Mor Gabriel Monastery

Turkey returns confiscated Syriac church property deeds

June 1, 2018 Turkey Istanbul, Kurds, Mardin, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syriacs, Turkey

Syriac Orthodox Christians have welcomed the Turkish government’s return of 55 title deeds, representing nearly half of their ancient church properties in southeast Turkey, which had been confiscated by the state in recent years. Fifty of the official property deeds were delivered to the Syriacs’ 4th century Mor Gabriel Monastery . . . Read More

Legal limbo of Turkey’s Syriac Christian properties still unresolved

July 18, 2017 Turkey Mardin, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs, Turkey

Over the past five years, legal ownership of at least 100 ancient Syriac Christian properties in Turkey’s southeast has been seized and transferred to the Turkish state treasury, where the title deeds still remain. The government-confiscated properties include two functioning monasteries, including adjacent lands to the 4th century Mor Gabriel . . . Read More

Turkey ‘promises’ first new church in 90 years

January 20, 2015 Turkey Armenian Genocide, Greek Orthodox, Istanbul, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs

The Turkish government allowed the first Syriac pre-school to open in Istanbul in September 2014.Mor Efrem Syriac Preschool’s Facebook photo The Turkish government has renewed its promise to allow the construction of a new church in Istanbul, a promise first made by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) . . . Read More

Sara got married

March 26, 2014 Turkey Assyrians, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, Kurds, Malatya, Mardin, Marriage, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Syriacs, Turkey, Women

On March 8, International Women’s Day, many of the people in southeastern Turkey only want to discuss one thing. She is Sara, an 18-year-old Assyrian/Syriac woman, who was allegedly kidnapped by sympathizers of Huda-Part, Allah’s party, the Kurdish equivalent to Hezbollah. Others say she merely followed her heart and converted . . . Read More

Turkey returns less than half of monastery land it seized

March 13, 2014 Turkey Europe, Mardin, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs

The Turkish Ministry of EU Affairs welcomed March 2 the return of property, seized by the country’s treasury, to the world’s oldest Syriac Orthodox monastery, Mor Gabriel. In February, the head of the Mor Gabriel Religious Foundation, Kuryakos Ergun, received the property deeds to 12 plots of land totaling 244,000 . . . Read More

Promised legal reforms disappoint Turkey’s religious minorities

October 3, 2013 Turkey Greek Orthodox, Halki Seminary, Kurds, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Patriarch Bartholomew I, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

An empty classroom in the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary near Istanbul, closed by the Turkish government since 1971.World Watch Monitor The Turkish government’s long-awaited “democratisation package” of reform laws announced this week has met with considerable disappointment among Turkey’s minority religious communities. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed on . . . Read More

Finally, Istanbul gives Syriac Christians a place to build: a cemetery

December 18, 2012 Turkey Burial, Churches, Istanbul, Mardin, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Turkey

Three years after a Syrian Orthodox foundation applied to build a church in Istanbul, the Greater Istanbul Municipality has granted them a large plot of land and a building permit. Banner headlines in the Turkish media praised the early-December decision as “a first in the history of the Republic,” declaring . . . Read More

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