Christian Orthodox Monastery in Turkey Celebrates First Liturgy Since Genocide
19 Αυγούστου 2010
The Monastery of the Virgin Mary of Soumela, on the Mount Melas, near the City of Trebizond in the Pontus (actual Turkey), was untill 1922 one of the most sacred and most popular Christian pilgrimages of world Orthodoxy. It was founded in the year 386 AD during the reign of emperor Theodosius the Great (375 – 395), tradition has it that two priests from Athens, Sophronius and his nephew Barnabas, undertook the founding of the monastery on the site after having discovered a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary in a cave on the mountain.
The Monastery was desecrated and depopulated in 1922 within the context of the Greek Genocide ( http://www.greek-genocide.org/index1.html ) in the Ottoman empire-Turkey.
“After 88 years, the tears of the Virgin Mary have stopped flowing,” the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, said during the service.
Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou, speaking after attending mass on the Cyclades Islands off the Greek mainland, welcomed the “historic and important event.”
It was a sign of bilateral rapprochement with Turkey and reflected “a spirit of cooperation and peace between us and our neighbor,” the prime minister said.
The site is of particular importance to Pontian Greeks, whose ancestors were massacred during the Pontian Genocide, which Turkey denies to this day.
On Aug. 15, around 500 Pontians were allowed into the fourth-century monastery while around 2,000 others come from Istanbul, Greece, Russia and Georgia, watched the mass on a giant television screen outside.
“For us the Virgin of Sumela is more important than our own mother,” Charalambos Zigas, a 51-year-old mechanic from Greece, told AFP. “You have to be a Pontian Greek to understand the importance of this mass.”
He said that when his grandfather fled the mountainous region for exile in Russia in 1922, he lost his wife and son who were eaten by bears.
Many of the faithful sought out houses that used to belong to their ancestors.
“Everyone here is like me, they came to see the region, find a house… we’ve even met two people from here who say they’re Pontian and we spoke Pontian Greek,” Greek veterinarian Maria Piativou, 42, told AFP.
“It is a very exciting moment for us Greeks because it’s the first time we get to have such a Mass,” Ketevan Nadareishvili, 24, told the Associated Press. “We can pray on the land of my great-great-grandfathers.”
Turkey in May sent a letter to the patriarch authorizing mass to be celebrated here once a year on Aug. 15.
The gesture appeared aimed at Turkey’s own Greek Orthodox minority, thought today to number around 2,000 people, which complains of discrimination.
Akhtamar is Next
In a similar gesture to Turkey’s Armenian minority, Ankara also authorized mass to be celebrated in September at the Church of Akhtamar, in the eastern Van province.
President Serge Sarkisian’s Republican Party this week spoke out against Armenian participation in the mass. The party spokesman, Eduard Sharmazanov, denounced the Turkish government’s decision to reopen it for a one-day religious ceremony on Sept. 19 as a publicity stunt and “provocation” aimed at misleading the international community.
“Once again, instead of taking a serious step, the Turks are staging an imitation show,” Sharmazanov told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “I don’t think you can achieve tolerance and solidarity of civilizations in that way.”
In turn, Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) political affairs director Giro Manoyan urged Armenians to boycott the mass.
“I think it would be wrong to go there on a day set by Turkey and especially in these conditions of blockade and so on,” Manoyan told RFE/RL. “I don’t want to blame believers willing to go there but they must know that they somewhat contribute to the Turkish provocation.”
Manoyan expressed regret for the decision by His Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos of All Armenians, to send two senior clerics to the Sourp Khatch (Holy Cross) Church for the mass. “I’m not sure that’s the right step,” Manoyan added.
