President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday inaugurated the first-ever church inbuilt Türkiye’s practically centenary historical past as a republic.
Following years of meticulous work, the St. Ephrem Syriac Ancient Orthodox Church located within the leafy neighborhood of Yeşilköy on the European a part of Istanbul thus opened its doorways to worshippers marking a momentous second in historical past.
Speaking on the ceremony, the president stated: “I hope that the church will bring good luck to the Syriac community. I congratulate those who contributed.”
“We worked in coordination with the administrators of the Syriac community and ensured that the necessary steps were taken,” he added.
“To date, a total of 1,084 properties, 113 of which belong to the Syriac community, have been registered in the name of community foundations,” Erdoğan stated.
The basis laying ceremony for the church, designed as a five-story mission in a vacant space of the Latin Catholic Cemetery, was held in a ceremony attended by President Erdoğan in 2019 whereas the opening that was deliberate for an earlier date this 12 months was briefly halted because of the devastating February earthquakes.
Earlier this week, Istanbul Assyrian Kadim Foundation President Sait Susin expressed pleasure concerning the much-awaited inauguration.
He identified that Syriac communities worldwide have been carefully following this course of, with many expressing their want to attend the opening ceremony.
In his interview with Anadolu Agency (AA), he highlighted that the development of the church spanned a decade, with seven years devoted to formalities and procedures.
In a separate assertion to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Susin stated, “This is the first newly built church to open its doors since the founding of the Republic of Türkiye.”
“We are happy,” he famous.
During the opening ceremony, Susin conveyed his heartfelt appreciation to the authorities and all these in attendance on the ceremony. He fondly reminisced concerning the pivotal choice to assemble the historic church within the Yeşilköy neighborhood, which had been made in the course of the tenure of President Erdoğan when he served as prime minister.
It is estimated that about 17,000 Syriac residents dwell within the metropolis. Assyrian Christianity traces its historical past to communities that lived within the A.D. first century in a area stretching from southeastern Türkiye to Syria and Iraq.
One ground of the newly opened five-story church in Yeşilköy was reserved as a cultural corridor for the neighborhood to fulfill after mass or ceremonies equivalent to baptisms, funerals and weddings, in addition to for conferences and conferences. On the bottom ground are the bishop’s quarters, visitor rooms and a car parking zone.
The church that’s anticipated to fulfill the wants of the congregation in Istanbul to a big extent is gloomy to have a capability to host 750 people for worship.
Apart from the church in Beyoğlu’s Tarlabaşı, Susin famous that they don’t have one other church on their property. Given that almost all of the Assyrian neighborhood resides in Yeşilköy, this newly constructed church will enormously handle their religious wants.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
