Turkish Government Threatens to Destroy Most Ancient Monastery in All Christendom

Edit: the drama continues in Turkish occupied Christian lands.

We'd reported earlier  last year in May that one of Christianity's most ancient and hallowed monasteries was being threatened by the Turkish government.   Amazingly, they're destroying the place by increments, using the legal system and the usual arbitrary despotic pretenses.  

It looked like a fait accompli then despite the outcry from Europe's politicians.

This is one of the reasons why we (Catholics) went on Crusade in the first place.

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JULY 12 - The Mongolians failed to destroy it 700 years ago despite the massacre of 40 friars and 400 Christians. Yet the existence of the oldest functioning Christian monastery in the world, the fifth century Mor Gabriel Monastery in the Tur Abdin plane (the mountain of God's servants) near the Turkish-Syrian border, is at risk after a ruling by Turkey's highest appeals court in Ankara.

 Founded in 397 by the monks Samuel and Simon, Mor Gabriel in eastern Anatolia has been the heart of the Orthodox Syrian community for centuries. Syriacs hail from a branch of Middle Eastern Christianity and are one of the oldest communities in Turkey.

Today the monastery is inhabited by Mor Timotheus Samuel Aktash, 3 monks, 11 nuns and 35 boys who are learning the monastery's teachings, the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and the Orthodox Syriac tradition.

Link to ANSA...

Turks Decide to Turn Hagia Sophia in Nicea into Mosque

The church in question was built in the sixth century by Emperor Justinian I. It is located in the Turkish city of Iznik—in earlier history called Nicea.

Nicea is where two Ecumenical Councils were held—in 325 and 787. The latter council was held in the very church of Holy Sophia. In Nicea the Symbol of Faith was composed and accepted, and still bears the name “Nicene Creed”. Here the Arian heresy was dealt a decisive blow, reports Pravda.ru.

The church of Holy Sophia received the fathers of the Ecumenical council who condemned iconoclasm. That this church in particular has been turned into a mosque is a wound for the entire Christian world. Adding insult to injury is the fact that this church was built as a scaled-down Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
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