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Christian monastery in Turkey fights to keep land
Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:02pm EST
By Ibon Villelabeitia
MIDYAT, Turkey - In a remote village near the Turkish-Syrian border, a land
dispute with neighboring villages is threatening the future of one of the
world's oldest functioning Christian monasteries.
Critics say the dispute, which has become a rallying cry for Christian
church groups across Europe, is a new chapter in the long history of
religious persecution of the small Christian community by the Turkish state.
Tucked amid rugged hills where minarets rise in the distance, a small group
of monks chants in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, inside the
fifth-century Mor Gabriel monastery. It is a relic of an era when hundreds
of thousands of Syriac Christians lived and worshipped in Turkey.
"This is our land. We have been here for more than 1,600 years," said
Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Mor Gabriel Foundation, surveying the barren
land and villages from the monastery's rooftop. "We have our maps and our
records to prove it. This is not about land. It's about the monastery."
The dispute, on which a court is due to rule on February 11, is testing
freedom of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in this
overwhelmingly Muslim country that aspires to join the European Union.
The row began when Turkish government land officials redrew the boundaries
around Mor Gabriel and the surrounding villages in 2008 to update a national
land registry.
The monks say the new boundaries turn over to the villages large plots of
land the monastery has owned for centuries, and designate monastery land as
public forest. Christian groups believe officials want to ultimately stamp
out the Syriac Orthodox monastery.
Their allegations come as the EU has said the ruling AK Party government,
which has Islamist roots, needs to do more to promote religious freedom
alongside its liberal economic and political reforms.
"This case relates to the political criteria Turkey has to meet to become a
member of the European Union," said Helena Storm, First Secretary of the
Sweden embassy in Ankara, who has traveled to the monastery to follow court
hearings.
"It is important that freedom of religion and property rights for minorities
are respected in Turkey," she said.
Local government officials reached by Reuters in the town of Midyat and in
the provincial capital of Mardin declined comment on the case, noting it was
going through the court.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to press ahead with difficult EU
reforms, including rights of minorities.
"ANTI-TURKISH"
In the name of Turkey's strict secular laws, authorities have over decades
expropriated millions of dollars worth of property belonging to Christians.
Syriacs, Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians -- remnants of the
Muslim-led but multi-faith Ottoman Empire -- are viewed by many as
foreigners.
Syriacs are one of Turkey's oldest communities, descendants of a branch of
Middle Eastern Christianity. These Christians, united by a language derived
from Aramaic, are split into several Orthodox and Catholic denominations.
There were 250,000 Syriacs when Ataturk founded Turkey after World War I
from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Today they number 20,000. Syriacs migrated throughout the 20th century to
Europe, fleeing first persecution by the new secular republic, and later to
escape violence between Kurdish separatist rebels and the Turkish military
in the southeast.
A local prosecutor in August 2008 initiated a separate court case against
the monastery after mayors of three villages complained the monks were
engaged in "anti-Turkish activities" and alleged they were illegally
converting children to the Christian faith.
Monks say the mayors are instigating anti-Christian feelings by accusing Mor
Gabriel of being against Islam. Villagers in neighboring Candarli, a
settlement of 12 humble houses with no paved roads, said they had nothing
against Christians and accused the monastery of taking land they need for
cattle.
"There is a continued campaign to destroy the backbone of the Syriac people
and close down the monastery," said Daniel Gabriel, director of the human
rights division of the Syriac Universal Alliance, a leading Syriac group
based in Sweden.
"These proceedings cannot take place without the sanction of the Turkish
government. If the government wanted to protect the Syriac Christian
community they would stop this case," he said.
Many churches and monasteries in southeast Turkey -- known to Syriac
Christians as Turabdin or "the mountain of worshippers" -- are now abandoned
and in ruins.
"You need people to have a church. Without the community, the church is only
a building," said Saliba Ozmen, the metropolitan or bishop of the nearby
city of Mardin.
INVASIONS AND RAIDS
The Conference of European Churches, a fellowship of 126 Orthodox,
Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic churches from European countries, has
said it is "deeply concerned about the threat to the survival of the
monastery." The group has raised the issue with the EU and Turkish
officials.
Considered the "second Jerusalem" by Syriacs, Mor Gabriel was built in 397
AD near the border of today's Syria and Iraq.
The ochre-colored limestone building has seen invasions by Romans,
Byzantines, Crusaders and Islamic armies, and the monastery was once raided
by the Mongol leader Tamerlane.
After falling into disuse, Mor Gabriel was revived in the 1920s and today it
teaches the Syriac faith and Aramaic language to a group of 35 boys, who
live and study at the monastery.
By law, Syriacs must attend state schools where teaching is in Turkish, but
they can be taught about their own language and religion outside school
hours.
Three black-clad monks, 14 nuns and a bishop live within the walls,
preserving the ancient Syriac liturgy and tending to the orchards and
gardens. They worship in a chapel with Byzantine mosaics. In its heyday, Mor
Gabriel housed 2,000 monks and nuns.
Mor Gabriel receives more than 100,000 visitors a year, many of them from
the Syriac diaspora in Germany and Sweden.
A trickle of Syriac families have returned in the last few years from the
diaspora, encouraged by a drop in violence and Turkey's easing of language
and cultural restrictions on its minorities as part of EU-linked reforms.
Syriac church leader Ozmen said there are powerful conservative forces
opposed to change in Turkey, but he is optimistic. He pointed to this
month's launch of a once-banned Kurdish language channel on state
television.
"Multiculturalism has been part of Turkey since the Ottoman times," he said.
"It is our best guarantee for the future."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Tom Heneghan)
Christian monastery in Turkey fights to keep land
Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:02pm EST
By Ibon Villelabeitia
MIDYAT, Turkey - In a remote village near the Turkish-Syrian border, a land
dispute with neighboring villages is threatening the future of one of the
world's oldest functioning Christian monasteries.
Critics say the dispute, which has become a rallying cry for Christian
church groups across Europe, is a new chapter in the long history of
religious persecution of the small Christian community by the Turkish state.
Tucked amid rugged hills where minarets rise in the distance, a small group
of monks chants in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, inside the
fifth-century Mor Gabriel monastery. It is a relic of an era when hundreds
of thousands of Syriac Christians lived and worshipped in Turkey.
"This is our land. We have been here for more than 1,600 years," said
Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Mor Gabriel Foundation, surveying the barren
land and villages from the monastery's rooftop. "We have our maps and our
records to prove it. This is not about land. It's about the monastery."
The dispute, on which a court is due to rule on February 11, is testing
freedom of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in this
overwhelmingly Muslim country that aspires to join the European Union.
The row began when Turkish government land officials redrew the boundaries
around Mor Gabriel and the surrounding villages in 2008 to update a national
land registry.
The monks say the new boundaries turn over to the villages large plots of
land the monastery has owned for centuries, and designate monastery land as
public forest. Christian groups believe officials want to ultimately stamp
out the Syriac Orthodox monastery.
Their allegations come as the EU has said the ruling AK Party government,
which has Islamist roots, needs to do more to promote religious freedom
alongside its liberal economic and political reforms.
"This case relates to the political criteria Turkey has to meet to become a
member of the European Union," said Helena Storm, First Secretary of the
Sweden embassy in Ankara, who has traveled to the monastery to follow court
hearings.
"It is important that freedom of religion and property rights for minorities
are respected in Turkey," she said.
Local government officials reached by Reuters in the town of Midyat and in
the provincial capital of Mardin declined comment on the case, noting it was
going through the court.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to press ahead with difficult EU
reforms, including rights of minorities.
"ANTI-TURKISH"
In the name of Turkey's strict secular laws, authorities have over decades
expropriated millions of dollars worth of property belonging to Christians.
Syriacs, Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians -- remnants of the
Muslim-led but multi-faith Ottoman Empire -- are viewed by many as
foreigners.
Syriacs are one of Turkey's oldest communities, descendants of a branch of
Middle Eastern Christianity. These Christians, united by a language derived
from Aramaic, are split into several Orthodox and Catholic denominations.
There were 250,000 Syriacs when Ataturk founded Turkey after World War I
from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Today they number 20,000. Syriacs migrated throughout the 20th century to
Europe, fleeing first persecution by the new secular republic, and later to
escape violence between Kurdish separatist rebels and the Turkish military
in the southeast.
A local prosecutor in August 2008 initiated a separate court case against
the monastery after mayors of three villages complained the monks were
engaged in "anti-Turkish activities" and alleged they were illegally
converting children to the Christian faith.
Monks say the mayors are instigating anti-Christian feelings by accusing Mor
Gabriel of being against Islam. Villagers in neighboring Candarli, a
settlement of 12 humble houses with no paved roads, said they had nothing
against Christians and accused the monastery of taking land they need for
cattle.
"There is a continued campaign to destroy the backbone of the Syriac people
and close down the monastery," said Daniel Gabriel, director of the human
rights division of the Syriac Universal Alliance, a leading Syriac group
based in Sweden.
"These proceedings cannot take place without the sanction of the Turkish
government. If the government wanted to protect the Syriac Christian
community they would stop this case," he said.
Many churches and monasteries in southeast Turkey -- known to Syriac
Christians as Turabdin or "the mountain of worshippers" -- are now abandoned
and in ruins.
"You need people to have a church. Without the community, the church is only
a building," said Saliba Ozmen, the metropolitan or bishop of the nearby
city of Mardin.
INVASIONS AND RAIDS
The Conference of European Churches, a fellowship of 126 Orthodox,
Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic churches from European countries, has
said it is "deeply concerned about the threat to the survival of the
monastery." The group has raised the issue with the EU and Turkish
officials.
Considered the "second Jerusalem" by Syriacs, Mor Gabriel was built in 397
AD near the border of today's Syria and Iraq.
The ochre-colored limestone building has seen invasions by Romans,
Byzantines, Crusaders and Islamic armies, and the monastery was once raided
by the Mongol leader Tamerlane.
After falling into disuse, Mor Gabriel was revived in the 1920s and today it
teaches the Syriac faith and Aramaic language to a group of 35 boys, who
live and study at the monastery.
By law, Syriacs must attend state schools where teaching is in Turkish, but
they can be taught about their own language and religion outside school
hours.
Three black-clad monks, 14 nuns and a bishop live within the walls,
preserving the ancient Syriac liturgy and tending to the orchards and
gardens. They worship in a chapel with Byzantine mosaics. In its heyday, Mor
Gabriel housed 2,000 monks and nuns.
Mor Gabriel receives more than 100,000 visitors a year, many of them from
the Syriac diaspora in Germany and Sweden.
A trickle of Syriac families have returned in the last few years from the
diaspora, encouraged by a drop in violence and Turkey's easing of language
and cultural restrictions on its minorities as part of EU-linked reforms.
Syriac church leader Ozmen said there are powerful conservative forces
opposed to change in Turkey, but he is optimistic. He pointed to this
month's launch of a once-banned Kurdish language channel on state
television.
"Multiculturalism has been part of Turkey since the Ottoman times," he said.
"It is our best guarantee for the future."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Tom Heneghan)