After seven years the first mass was celebrated in the church of San Ciríaco. The service was attended by the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and the Turkish Minister of Culture. Ankara also contributed funding to the work. The building had been closed and expropriated in 2015-2016 during clashes between the army and the PKK.
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Istanbul (AsiaNews) – A historic day for the Armenian Christian community of Diyarbakır, a city in southeastern Turkey with a Kurdish majority, which yesterday celebrated its first Sunday mass in seven years in the church of Saint Cyriacus. The largest church of the Armenian community in the Middle East reopened for worship after a long period of interruption. The celebration was also attended by the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Sahak II Mashalian and the Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.
The Church of Saint Cyriacus in Diyarbakır, in eastern Turkey, is one of the most important places of worship in the country for the Armenian-Christian tradition. In fact, it is the only place of worship of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the entire Asian part of the country, with the exception of Istanbul. The building, of exceptional historical and artistic value, dates from the 16th century AD and is characterized by a front with seven aligned altars. Reopened for worship after several decades of disuse on October 23, 2011, the Church of Saint Cyriacus is one of the largest Armenian religious sites in the entire Middle East.
Like many other Christian religious buildings in the country (such as Chora and Hagia Sophia) during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the birth of the Turkish Republic, in 1913 the church ceased to fulfill its religious function and became the headquarters of the German army . At the end of the Great War it became a state warehouse for cloth and fabrics, a use that continued until the 1960s, when the Turkish government returned it to the Armenian community – then numbering a few dozen worshipers – although the building it was largely unused due to numerous fires and prolonged disuse.
In 2009, some Istanbul Armenians formed a committee to rebuild the building, with the support of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. After obtaining the go-ahead from the Turkish government and creating funding through a fundraising campaign among Istanbul Armenians and the diaspora, to which the Turkish Ministry of Culture and the Diyarbakır Municipality also contributed, work began. reconstruction of the structure, starting with the roof covered with surrounding Armenian soil. What makes the work exceptional is the fact that in post-imperial Turkey no abandoned church was restored as a place of Christian worship, as most of the time it ended up as a museum. Currently, the building occupies an area of 3,200 square meters, which also includes the rooms of the priests, other chapels and a school.
In 2015, the church received the Europa Nostra awards for cultural heritage. However, this did not prevent the church from being involved in the fierce clashes between the Turkish army and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party, banned and terrorist for Ankara) militias that broke out in the area at the end of 2015 and in 2016, suffering heavy damage and ending up closed again. As part of the military offensive, the Turkish government had ordered the expropriation of the church of San Ciriaco and all the other churches in the metropolis on the banks of the Tigris River. The commitment and dedication of the local community, as well as the funding allocated by Ankara, have made possible the restoration of the building, which yesterday celebrated the resumption of services with a solemn mass.
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