Our reason to be in this part of Turkey was to visit the Tur Abdin area. 'Tur Abdin' means mountain of the servants (of God). Numerous churches and monasteries can be found in this area. Almost 100 years ago, the British explorer, Gertrude bell spent significant time here surveying all the monasteries and leaving a legacy of her findings. Most of the buildings were in bad shap but of late money has been sent back from the Syriac diaspora all over the world to restore most of the monasteries. Today Mor Gabriel, the principal monastery in the area is beautifully and lovingly restored. Not too many visitors come here but on the day of our visit, we crossed paths with a French group and an Italian group. It was quite heartening to see. There is a bus between Midyat and Cizre that stop on the main road just one mile from Mor Gabriel. We took the bus, got dropped off and was going to walk the mile to the monastery when a tour bus stopped to give us a lift. It belonged to a French group. That was so nice of them.
Part of the church was built by Empress Theodora, Justinian's wife.
In the dining area there was this painting of the last supper. We didn't have a guide, so we followed the Italian group, their guide spoke some English.Gertrude Bell wouldn't be able to regconise this place if she came back today.
No comments:
Post a Comment