Giulio Paletta's Photographs of Tur Abdin

Giulio Paletta is an Italian photo-journalist who specialises in small Christian groups throughout the world.

Tur Abdin in south east Turkey has been the home of Syria Christians since the early days of Christianity, producing among others the unique St Ephraim whose theology was worked out in rich poetry rather than careful prose. It is a form of Christianity which mainly developed outside the Roman world: for most of its history this plateau in the mountains of northern Mesopotamia saw an astonishing flourishing of theology, literature and culture within first the Persian and then the Arab and finally the Turkish worlds. Today the Syrian Orthodox minority is surrounded by a population which is mainly Kurdish.

With the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, minorities in Turkey lost their clear position and the chaos of the First World War and then the establishment of the nominally secular but deeply Muslim Turkish Republic brought disaster to Tur Abdin. Its Christian population suffered alongside the Armenians in the massacres of 1915, and many fled to neighbouring Syria for safety on the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

However, for those who remained life stabilised until the eruption of the Kurdish rebellion in 1984. Violence against Christians meant that the population plummeted from over 20,000 to 2,000 in 1995.

Since then, a more stable political situation has led to some emigrants returning, and also a rise in the population. However local Kurdish politicians are trying to have the lands of the main monastery taken away, and the people once again find that being a minority is a very long struggle.

The Revd Stephen Griffith is Team Vicar in the Mortlake with East Sheen Team. He represented the Archbishop of Canterbury in Turkey and the surrounding region from 1997 to 2003.