Mor Gabriel Monastery

Monastery of Saint Gabriel

Location within Turkey
Monastery information
Other names	Dayro d-Mor Gabriel Deyrulumur
Order	Syriac Orthodox Church
Established	397
Dedicated to	Saint Gabriel of Beth Qustan
Diocese	Diocese of Tur Abdin
Controlled churches	Saint Gabriel Church, Church of the Virgin Mary, Church of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
People
Founder(s)	Mor Samuel and Mor Simon
Abbot	Mor Timotheos Aktas
Site
Coordinates	37°19′18.4″N 41°32′18.6″E / 37.321778°N 41.538500°E / 37.321778; 41.538500

Dayro d-Mor Gabriel (Classical Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ; the Monastery of Saint Gabriel),^[1] also known as Deyrulumur, is the oldest surviving Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world behind Mor Mattai Monastery in Northern Iraq.^[2] The monastery dint take its name as Mor Gabriel until 7^th century until when the monastery was known as the Monastery of Qartmin and monastery of Mor Samuel & Mor Simon.^[3] It is located on the Tur Abdin plateau near Midyat in the Mardin Province in southeastern Turkey.^[4] It has been involved in a dispute with the Turkish government that threatened its existence.^[5] Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin), Mor Gabriel Monastery and Deyrulzafaran.^[6] Currently the monastery serves as the seat of metropolitan of Tur-Abdin

Dayro d-Mor Gabriel was founded in 397 by the ascetic Mor Shmu'el (Samuel) and his student Mor Shem'un (Simon). According to tradition, Shem'un had a dream in which an Angel commanded him to build a House of Prayer in a location marked with three large stone blocks. When Shem'un awoke, he took his teacher to the place and found the stone the angel had placed. At this spot Mor Gabriel Monastery built.

The monastery's importance grew and by the 6th century there were over 1000 local and Coptic monks there. The monastery became so famous that it received contributions from Eastern Roman Emperors, such as Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius II and Anastasius.^[4] Between 615 and 1049 the Episcopal seat of Tur Abdin was based here and from 1049 until 1915 the monastery had its own diocese.

In the 7^th century, the monastery became known as Monastery of Saint Gabriel, who was famous for his ascetic life. Towards the end of the century, Simeon of the Olives, who had been a monk at the monastery before his appointment as bishop of Harran, renovated the monastery with money found from a treasure.^[7] In the fourteenth century four hundred and forty monks were killed by invading Mongols.^[8] In 1991, the remains of monks killed by Timur (Tamerlane) were found in caves underneath the monastery, dated to the year 1401.^[9] During the Sayfo genocide the monks were massacred by Kurds and the monastery was occupied for four years until returned to the church in 1919.^[10]

The monastery is an important center for the Syriac-Orthodox Christians of Tur Abdin with around fifteen nuns and two monks occupying separate wings, as well as a fluctuating number of local lay workers and guests from overseas. It maintained a significant library however, almost nothing remains. The monastery is currently the seat of the metropolitan bishop of Tur Abdin. In its history the monastery has produced many high-ranking clerics and scholars, among them, four patriarchs, a Maphrian and 84 bishops.

Dayro d-Mor Gabriel is a monastery set amongst gardens and orchards, and was somewhat disfigured by 1960s residential accommodation. The monastery's primary purpose is to keep Syriac Orthodox Christianity alive in the land of its birth by providing schooling, ordination of native-born monks. On occasions it has provided physical protection to the Christian population.

The monastery is open for visitors from 09:00 to 11:30 in the morning and from 13:00 to 16:30 in the afternoon. The monastery closes at 16:00 in the winter.^[11]

Presently, the monastery consists of two parts they are the lower historic section and the upper new annexes from the last century. the monastery has many sections including the House of saints(Beth Qadishe) a burial chamber, the church of the mother god, the house of martyrs in lowest part of the present burial chamber, a prayer hall named house of apostles, a small chapel named temple of forty martyrs, the main church whose construction was completed by emperor Anasthasius I and the dome of Theodora^[12]

Also known as the Anasthasian church was begun in 397 by the founders of the monastery of Mor Samuel and Mor Simon(Mor Gabriel monastery) as a simple house of prayer and completed with the support of the Byzantine Emperor Anasthasius I in 512.^[13] The main church is a barrel-vaulted church with a north-south accent, also the church is well known for its transverse style of architecture and the mosaics in the sanctuary of the main church. the Mosaics are aniconic which means that there is no human or animal in the mosaics.^[14] The missing parts of the mosaic are covered with white mortar.^[15] The mosaics in Saint Catherine’s monastery in Mount Sinai and the mosaics in Mor Gabriel are the only 6th century Byzantine mosaics that survived to the east of Constantinople.

Built at the beginning of the 6th century, the 17-meter high Theodora dome of the monastery is made of radially layered bricks and rests on walls of ashlar and mortar core. The dome is named after Theodora (497 - 548), wife of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who visited the monastery. There is a record that the Empress Theodora, who was a great friend of monks & bishops of those opposed to the Council of Chalcedon, visited Qartmin and gave it the money with which to build “Theodora’s Dome”, although Justinian’s policy was in favor of Chalcedon. This building stands near the north-west corner of the main church.^[16] It is thought that the building was originally built as a baptistery. The eight arches in the structure confirm this in various ways. For example, St. Ambrosius said, ‘The number eight contains the integrity of the rebirth’. The number eight symbolizes eternity.^[17]

It was built in the 5th century and was destroyed and looted several times. This church is reached by crossing the long abbara in front of the Theodora dome. Architecturally, it consists of three arches and three barrel-vaulted naves. The altar of the church was said to have been built in 1991.Today, there exist an inscription on the door where visitors enter, it records the visit of Patriarch Ignatius Yaqub III in 1965. At times when the Great Church was closed, worship was performed in this church

The house of saints also known as Beth Qadishe in Syriac is where the tombs of people who died at different times are present. This structure was called the House of Martyrs when it was first built because of the burial of martyrs in the early years when the Assyrians accepted Christianity. Later, in addition to martyrs, metropolitans, monastery chiefs, and priests were buried here. Many saints’ tombs and bones are found here including the tomb of Mor gabriel. Since it was believed that the Jesus would rise from the east, the clergy was buried in a sitting position with their faces facing east. The tombs are in the form of a barrel roof made of marble and one side is empty.^[17] It is believed that 12,000 relics of saints and martyrs were buried in this chamber^[18]

Between 2008 and 2018, the monastery was involved in a land dispute with the Turkish government and Kurdish village leaders, particularly those linked to the Çelebi tribe,^[19] backed by local representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party.^[20] In 2008 the villages of Eğlence, Çandarlı and Yayvantepe as well as the Turkish Land Registry and the Forestry Ministry filed legal proceeding disputing the territory of the monastery.^[21] The monastery won the legal dispute against the villages but lost to the Turkish authorities, and it officially lost the rights to 60 percent of its territory. The monastery took the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).^[22] In meetings with the monastery's bishop, the Turkish prime minister and president implied that the land dispute was initiated as retaliation against the Syriac diaspora for lobbying for international recognition of the killings of tens of thousands of Syriacs during World War I as genocide.^[23] The attempts to confiscate land owned by the monastery garnered attention from many European governments and gathered opposition to Turkey's EU bid, and could be the basis of a case by the monastery at the ECHR. Otmar Oehring from Missio, a German Catholic charity, said that the cases meant that “the state's actions suggest it wishes that the monastery no longer existed.”^[19]

The government and villages' lawsuit claimed that the monastery was built on the grounds of a previous mosque, even though the monastery was founded over 170 years before the birth of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^[20]

On 26 January 2011, the Turkish supreme court granted substantial parts of the Monastery to the Turkish Treasury.^[24] The ruling held that land inside and adjacent to the monastery, which the monastery has controlled for decades and has paid taxes on, belongs to the state. On June 13, 2012, the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals upheld this decision, which Arameans continued to protest.^[24]

Then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on 30 September 2013 that the land would be returned to the Syriac community in Turkey.^[25] This decision was approved a week later (7 October) by the Prime Ministry Directorate General of Foundations. A land registration process of two months would begin and was subject to approval.^[21]

The head of the Monastery of Mor Gabriel Foundation was handed the deeds of 12 parcels of the immovable property belonged to the Foundation of the Monastery of Mor Gabriel on 25 February 2014. This was based on the decision taken on 7 October 2013 by the Council of Foundations of the General Directorate of the Foundations. The legal process for taking the remaining 18 parcels of the monastery property continued.^[26]

A news report in June 2018 stated that the Turkish Parliament had passed an omnibus bill which was then signed into law by the president to return historic Syriac properties. The government returned the title deeds which had been confiscated from Mor Gabriel Monastery.^[27]

• Roman architecture
• List of Roman domes
• Oldest churches in the world

• 'Le dernier combat des moines de Turquie', La Croix, Tuesday 21 November 2017, p.18/19

• Barsoum, Aphrem (2008). Moosa, Matti (trsl.) (ed.). The History of Tur Abdin. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-715-5. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
• Üngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mor Gabriel Monastery.

• Official website
• Presentation
• A Cold Wind Sweeping the Tur Abdin
• Turkey's Aramaean Minority: More Than Just Mor Gabriel