Friday, July 13, 2012

Mor Gabriel Monastery news

THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE MOR GABRIEL MONASTERY IN TURKEY has been quiet for some time, but evidently not in a good way. The latest from the Catholic World News:
Ancient monastery in Turkey faces destruction in anti-Christian lawsuit

The world’s oldest functioning Christian monastery faces a clouded future, after an appeals court in Turkey ruled that the building sits on land not owned by the monks.

The Mor Gabriel monastery, built near the Syrian border, was established in 397 by Syriac Orthodox monks, and has been in continuous use since that time, welcoming up to 20,000 pilgrims each year.
So it's been there since 397 and someone just noticed they don't own the land? Right.
But neighboring villagers brought suit against the monks, charging that they were engaged in “anti-Turkish activities” since they educate young men in the Aramaic language and in the Christian faith. The villagers also claimed ownership of the land on which the monastery was constructed. The court sided with the villagers on that claim.
If you start letting people go around teaching Aramaic, next thing you know they'll be teaching Akkadian or Hittite or something. You have to nip these things in the bud. And let's not even get started about this whole freedom of religion thing.
Syriac Orthodox officials are likely to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the monastery’s title to the property has been established by over 1,500 years of use.

An appeal might also highlight the lightly-veiled anti-Christian message of the villagers’ complaint.
Ya think?
The lawsuit alleged that the Mor Gabriel monastery was built on a site previously used as a mosque, when in fact the monastery was built 170 years before the birth of Mohammed.
Inconvenient, that.

As I've said before, if Turkey is serious about full EU membership, it has to start dealing with things like this on a mature basis. Apparently there is a petition to save the monastery by nationalizing its estates. I'm not sure what I think about that.

Meanwhile the appropriate response to this farce is ridicule. I'm doing my part.

Cross-file under Syriac and Aramaic Watch. Background here with many links.