Giulio Paletta : Tur Abdin

 

Tur Abdin

This exhibition is about the vibrant community of Syriac Christians of the plateau of Tur Abdin, between the Tigris and Euphrates. A home to a continuing Christian presence since the third century, it is a living example of ideas and practices long forgotten in the Christian West.

The People

In Tur Abdin there is one town, Midyat, with the administrative centre of Mardin on the western edge of the plateau. With plentiful rain and snow in the winter, and scorching summer heats, as well as outcrops of limestone rocks everywhere, the plateau needs hard work from the farming people. In the valleys an abundance of crops grow well: and the best help is the donkey, safely making her way between rough outcrops. Grapes, figs, pistachios, wheat and barley, as well as local milk products of yogurt and cheeses are signs of prosperity when the area is at peace.

The Faith

Syriac Christianity expresses itself more in words than images, and the worship expresses itself in hymns and poems bursting with metaphor, image, irony. Many people attend church daily for morning and evening prayer, but a shortage of priests means that many of the villages only have a Eucharistic liturgy every few weeks. Daily prayers are sung in classical Syriac, often read from large, hand-written folios. Young people learn to read and sing Syriac and are often members of the choirs which chant the services.

An Uncertain Future

Since the rise of Nationalism and the end of the Ottoman Empire Tur Abdin has suffered times of flight: people fleeing from oppressive governments, or from Kurdish nationalists or Islamic extremists. During the Kurdish rising of the 1980s and 1990s 90% of the population fled, and there are presently attempts to take the land from the Monasteries. Less than 3,000 Syriac Christians live there today, but the number has been rising over the last five years.

Tur Abdin today

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened the gates of various nationalisms, and the resulting persecutions have led to minorities diminishing in numbers. Alongside the Christians the Yezidi minority suffered worst, with a total disappearance from the region. In the twentieth century there were times of severe oppression: in 1915 during the Great war, in the 1920s with the struggle to define Turkish identity, and more recently with the PKK's Kurdish war against Turkish rule. In this period from the mid 1980s 90% of Tur Abdin's Christian population fled, leaving a bare 2,000 living there.

Recent events have led to a return by many émigrés, but corrupt local politicians are still attempting to close monasteries and give the land to Kurdish villages. Victory in the courts for these powerful Kurds would result in further flight; a just solution and support by the Turkish government would show Turkey to be a protector of all its citizens and not just the Muslim majority.

The Tur Abdin Focus Group works to encourage the people of Tur Abdin

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.