Eg har tidlegare skrive om presset og rettssaka mot det kristne fellesskapet i klosteret Mar Gabriel langt aust i Tyrkia. Det dreier seg både om den konkrete situasjonen for klosteret og om den generelle situasjonen for religiøse minoritetar i landet. Saka blir følgt med interesse av EU, sidan Tyrkia ønskjer å bli medlem i unionen.
Eg vil også peika på at saka gir kjennskap til ein, for oss her i Norge, nærast ukjent kristen tradisjon med røter langt bakover i historia. Klosteret blei grunnlagt i 397 og er eit av dei eldste klostera som framleis er i bruk.
Assyrian International News Agency skriv:
Battle Over a Christian Monastery Tests Turkey’s Tolerance of Minorities
Christians have lived in these parts since the dawn of their faith. But they have had a rough couple of millennia, preyed on by Persian, Arab, Mongol, Kurdish and Turkish armies. Each group tramped through the rocky highlands that now comprise Turkey’s southeastern border with Iraq and Syria.
(…)
The outcome of the land dispute is now in the hands of a Turkish court. Seated below a bust of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s secular founding father, a robed judge on Wednesday told the feuding parties that he would issue a ruling after he visits the disputed territory himself next month.
(…)
Founded in 397, Mor Gabriel is one of the world’s oldest functioning monasteries. Viewed by Syriacs as a “second Jerusalem,” it sits atop a hill overlooking now solidly Muslim lands. It has just three monks and 14 nuns. It also has 12,000 ancient corpses buried in a basement crypt.
The bishop’s local flock numbers only 3,000. Mor Gabriel’s influence, however, reaches far beyond its fortress-like walls, inspiring and binding a community of Christians scattered by persecution and emigration. There are hundreds of thousands more Syriac Christians across the frontier in Iraq and Syria and in Europe. They speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ. (Les meir)
Når det gjeld dette siste poenget, om arameisk, viser eg til notatet om Jesu morsmål.
Posta av Arne Berge 
