Assyrian International News Agency › ata › 2013101916954.pdfTuroyo into English. At one point we stopped to drink coffee and eat a platter of fruit prepared by the young man's

All Things AssyrianThe Holy Cross Monastery in Turkeyhttp://insearchofunusualdestinations.wordpress.comPosted 2013-10-19 20:09 GMT

To find Catalcam, access Google Maps and in the search engine type "Midyat, Turkey". From thecentre of Midyat, follow the main road north (the road goes through stunning Hasankeyf on its way toBatman) for about 6 kms to a junction for Dargecit on the right. Take the road to the right. After about15 kms you pass beside the pretty village of Izbirak. Continue for another 5 kms and a turning to theleft leads to Catalcam, which is about 4 kms from the main road. It is an asphalt road all the way fromMidyat to Catalcam. Public transport exists between Midyat and Dargecit and the minibus driver willknow where to drop you for Catalcam. It is a relatively easy walk across undulating plateau from themain road to Catalcam, but almost everyone with a motor vehicle will provide you with a lift all orpart of the way.

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Catalcam is the Turkish name for a village known to Syriac [Assyrian] Christians as Dayro Daslibo.Nowadays, the monastery is, but for one or two nearby buildings, all that remains of the village(although later, when touring the monastery, I was told that Dayro Daslibo is really an abandonedvillage that exists just over the ridge). From a distance of about 1 km, the monastic complex lookslarger than some that remain in Tur Abdin, and its sturdy outer walls resemble those of a castle. Itsoon became apparent why it is so large and why it is protected by formidable walls. At times duringthe history of Dayro Daslibo, the monastery was also the village. For greater security houses werebuilt within the complex, and evidence for such houses survives to this day.



An elderly Syriac Christian who has lived in the village for most of his life, and a young SyriacChristian man whose family live in Sweden, led me on an astounding tour of the monastic complex.The elderly man knew a vast amount about the history and the folklore associated with themonastery, and the young Swedish-born Syriac Christian kindly translated what he could fromTuroyo into English. At one point we stopped to drink coffee and eat a platter of fruit prepared by theyoung man's mother (the young man's family were living in the monastery for a month so they couldre-engage with their roots). When I asked about sayfo (the large-scale massacre of Syriac Christiansthat began in April 1915), the elderly man told stories from those terrible times as if the events hadhappened only a few weeks' ago. It was obvious that sayfo (the year of the sword) has left anindelible mark on Syriac Christian consciousness, a mark comparable to the one that metz yeghem(the big calamity) has left on Armenian consciousness, and shoah (the holocaust) has left on Jewishconsciousness.



DelCogliano writes that:

"The monastery was founded by Mor Aho c. 575 -- 600 (the locals prefer an earlier foundation dateof c. 500). Mor Aho was a native of Resh'aina (modern day Ra's al-Ain in Syria) and became adisciple of a local monk at the age of twelve. In 573 he was captured during a Persian raid andconscripted into the Persian army. Subsequently extricating himself, he returned to the Tur Abdinregion and founded a monastery.

"Some time after this he travelled to Jerusalem and Constantinople from where he smuggled away arelic of the Holy Cross. Mor Aho hid the relic in a slit in his leg, which miraculously healed over thewound, demonstrating divine approbation of the theft. The monastery's main church, todaydedicated to Mor Aho, was built over the relic, which was positioned in an undisclosed location (nodoubt to prevent its further theft). Hence the relic cannot be seen and no one knows exactly where itis, though local tradition remains certain of its presence. Mor Aho is also responsible for theconversion of four villages in the area of Melitene (present-day Eski Malatya) and for the foundationof another monastery in the same region. He died at a great age, and his tomb can still be seen



today in the monastery's Beth Qadishe.

"Whatever its history after the death of Mor Aho, Dayro Daslibo was abandoned as a monastic siteduring the massacres of 1915. Subsequent attempts to revive monastic life failed, with some of themonks being killed. The situation of the village in the late 1990s was so precarious that in May 2000Reverend Stephen Griffith wrote: '(The village of) Dayro Daslibo has only thirteen old people whoare waiting to die. Their stories of the massacres of 1915 and 1924 are still vivid, but it is themigration of their children which will end the 1,400 year-old Christian history of the village.'

"The situation of Dayro Daslibo has improved since then. One family has returned to the village fromthe diaspora, a young man returned to the village after his military service, and the local communityand visiting emigrants have expended much energy restoring and improving the church. A new wellhas been sunk for the village by the local authorities. Finally, a nun named Meryem (Mary) has livedat the monastery since 2001. She explained to us, however, that since there are no monks residingat the monastery and the liturgy is not performed on a regular basis, the Syriac Orthodox do notconsider Dayro Daslibo an active monastery. Nonetheless, the presence of Meryem is perhaps aprelude to the full revival of monastic life. A visiting priest celebrates the liturgy every twenty or fortydays for the five Christian families that now reside in the village.



"When we visited Dayro Daslibo, the lively Meryem gave us a tour of the monastery, speaking to usin German… We were able to scan the magnificent horizon from atop the church, speaking also to alocal woman as she dried tomatoes on the roof."

I also found myself on the roof of the church and can confirm that the views in every direction areexcellent. On the occasion of my visit, female members of the family from Sweden helped a localwoman to dry tomatoes. The women had a large plastic bowl full of enviably large tomatoes. Theysliced the tomatoes in half. The sliced tomatoes were carefully arranged on a sheet of plastic ortarpaulin so that they did not touch their neighbours. The skins of the tomatoes were in contact withthe plastic or tarpaulin, which meant that the juicy insides faced toward the sun. I was advised that,because of the extremely dry heat in August, it took only two to five days for the tomatoes to be readyfor storage. Meryem arrived to check that everything was going well.

Sinclair writes that:

"The monastery was built round a court and surrounded by a high wall: the present villagers havebuilt houses at first floor level and increased the place's fortress-like aspect. One church, however,



that of Mor Aho, lies just outside the enclosure, s. of the se. corner. Mor Aho, who died in 556 (?),was the supposed founder of this monastery: in reality, the monastery was probably foundedearlier…

"Church of the Cross. This lies against the e. wall near the s. end, and a chamber reached from thes. sanctuary touches the monastery's s. wall. The church is of the transverse nave type, and extendsabout 20 metres e. -- w. Houses have now been built over most of the roof, but a beth slutho (free-standing, open-air apse, probably for summer services) survives against the w. wall of the narthex. Itis much rebuilt, fragments of sculpture being re-incorporated in random positions on all threesides… The beth slutho's inner end is rectangular rather than semi-circular. The narthex is nowreached from a corridor to its n.: an opening has been broken into the narthex's n. end. The church,too, has been rebuilt at some stage, and there are signs of subsequent restoration. The middlesanctuary ends in a semi-circle which projects beyond the e. line of the two side sanctuaries.

"Church of Mor Aho. The church, which has a square nave, lies at the n. end of the rectangularchamber for the saint's tomb, the latter chamber being larger overall and longer n. -- s. than thechurch's nave. A recent corridor has been created on the w., connecting the doors of both nave andtomb chamber, and the outer wall of the corridor has been continued round the other sides of thebuilding as an encasing wall, though the church's three sanctuaries were rebuilt, and their layoutchanged, in the process. The church has kept its original wall (probably 556) on the w. and, inplaces, on the e., including the apse arch and the wall to its n.: the niche here seems to be thebeginning of the original passage to the n. sanctuary, which is now reached from the middlesanctuary. The saint's bare tomb lies in the s. chamber's sw. corner. Parts at least, and probably thewhole, of the chamber's walls, were rebuilt in 1034 (inscription on outer face of w. wall), and thechurch's n. wall seems to have been included in the renovation."



After we had looked around the Church of the Cross and the compound's other buildings, the latterincluding accommodation for Meryem, a few villagers and short- or long-term visitors (parts of thecomplex look and feel very old, which says a lot about how carefully restoration has beenundertaken in recent times), we left the main entrance and walked to the left where an extension ofthe complex exists outside the walled enclosure. Here is a second, smaller, church (the church thatSinclair identifies as that of Mor Aho) with a cemetery in front of it. The cemetery has many oldgraves and gravestones within it, but also, beneath two or three stunted trees, a handful of morerecent graves covered with quite large tombs. That Syriac Christians are once more buried in TurAbdin simply because of old age is itself a very positive sign.

We entered the second church where my guides showed me a small flat cavity in the wall fromwhere something had obviously been removed. My guides said that the cavity once held a stoneinscribed with information in Aramaic (similar stones exist elsewhere in the church). However, theinscribed stone had caught the eye of an English or a European woman who, a few years beforesayfo, had visited the monastery. The woman asked if she could have the inscribed stone and, so



sayfo, had visited the monastery. The woman asked if she could have the inscribed stone and, sothe story goes, the people who were showing her around granted her wish. Understandably, myguides were curious to know what had been written on the inscribed stone. They did not want theinscribed stone returned because, according to local tradition, it had been given to the womanwillingly, but they wanted to know what was written on it so that a replica could be carved andinserted into the cavity from where the original had been removed.

To the best of my knowledge, the only English or European woman who might have visited themonastery a few years before sayfo was Gertrude Bell (she visited Tur Abdin twice, in 1909 and1911), so I said this to my guides. I also said that by typing "Gertrude Bell" into an internet searchengine the remarkable Gertrude Bell archive in the possession of Newcastle University will instantlyappear in the list of relevant websites. I said I would try to find information about the inscribed stone,but warned that such information might take time to track down.

We went into the Beth Qadishe below the church where famous figures associated with themonastery lie buried, Mor Aho included, then we returned to the sun-swamped cemetery. I delayedmy departure a few minutes more to take full stock of this remarkable monastic complex. For obviousreasons, Mor Gabriel Monastery (about 30 kms south-east of Midyat) and Dar Zafaran Monastery(about 6 kms east of Mardin) are more important and better known than the Monastery of the HolyCross, but I found my visit to Dayro Daslibo highly instructive and very moving.

N.B. Here is some useful background information for teachers (and, indeed, others) who may wish touse the post for educational purposes.

The monastery featured in the photos below belongs to the Syriac Orthodox Church, a church whichin the old days used to be misleadingly called "monophysite". The churches most often deemed"monophysite" (Christ has one nature, the divine) are the Armenian Apostolic, the Coptic, theEthiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox churches. These churches are distinct from the"dyophysite/diaphysite" churches (the Protestant, the Roman Catholic and the "mainstream"Orthodox churches such as the Greek, the Russian and the Serbian Orthodox churches) whichsubscribe to the idea that Christ has two natures, the divine and the human.

However, the Armenian Apostolic, the Coptic, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodoxchurches are better described as "miaphysite". The "miaphysite" doctrine derives from Cyril ofAlexandria who described Christ as being of one incarnate nature where both the divine and thehuman are united. While the prefix "mono" refers to a singular one, the prefix "mia" refers to acompound one.



The "dyophysite/diaphysite" concept of Jesus can be equated to a glass containing oil and water(the two natures, the divine and the human, are present in Jesus, but do not mix), while the"miaphysite" concept of Jesus can be equated to a glass containing wine and water (the twonatures, the divine and the human, mix).

Along with the Coptic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church played a key role in the development ofearly Christian monasticism. The Syriac Orthodox Monastery of Mor Gabriel near Midyat, Turkey,can claim to be one of the oldest still functioning Christian monasteries in the world, roughlycontemporary with the four ancient Coptic monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun, Egypt, whose origins alsolie in the late 4th century. Mor Gabriel's foundation precedes Mar Saba Monastery in Palestine byabout 80 years, Saint Catherine's Monastery immediately below Mount Sinai by about 150 years,and the earliest monastery on Mount Athos by at least 400 years. Thus, Mor Gabriel is one of ahandful of monasteries carrying on a tradition that has continued, apart from periods of desertion, forover 1,600 years.

A brief word about the attractive sutore (the plural of suturo) d'madbho, or sanctuary veils (my thanksto DelCogliano for most of what follows). Suturo d'madbho is a type of artwork encountered all overTur Abdin. Every Tur Abdin church has at least one suturo that separates the altar from thecongregation at certain times during the liturgy. The suturo is attached to a curtain rod so that it canbe easily drawn back and forth when necessary. Most churches also have several other sutorehanging on a bare wall or covering an alcove or doorway. Sutore are examples of a Turkish craftskill particularly popular in Anatolia called basmacilik, which literally means "stamping". The art ofbasmacilik involves taking wooden moulds carved into various figures and shapes, pressing theminto paint, and then stamping the cloth with them. An alternative way of achieving the same outcomeis to draw the outlines of the figures and the shapes on the cloth and then painting them by hand.

Most sutore are approximately 2 metres square. Each suturo has one or two large images in thecentre of the cloth, typically of Mary, the last supper, the crucifixion or the resurrection. Almostwithout exception, in small circles at each of the four corners, are images of the four evangeliststogether with their symbols: John with an eagle, Matthew with a man, Mark with a lion and Luke withan ox. Other images include seraphim or angels. Figures on the sutore are usually surrounded bydecorative floral arrangements or elaborate scrollwork. While some sutore are subdued in tonebecause of the use of different browns, many are bright and vibrant because they employ deep reds,blues, yellows and greens. Although most sutore in Tur Abdin are not very old, they appear to bebased on designs from an earlier age.

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Assyrian International News Agency › ata › 2013101916954.pdfTuroyo into English. At one point we stopped to drink coffee and eat a platter of fruit prepared by the young man's