Arıca, Gercüş
In the village, there are churches of Mor Aho and Mor Dimet, Mor Ya’qub, and of Mor Barsaumo. The ruins of the Monastery of Mor Barsaumo are located nearby.
Etymology
The Syriac name of the village is derived from "kefr" ("village" in Syriac).
History
In 1454 (AG 1765), many men from Kafro Eloyto (today called Arıca) were suffocated to death by smoke by Turks of the clan of Hasan Beg, according to the account of the priest Addai of Basibrina in c. 1500 appended to the Chronography of Bar Hebraeus. Iyawannis Qufar, son of Benjamin of Kafra, was ordained as the Syriac Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Gargar between 1492 and 1494. Philoxenus Abd al-Ahad Massi, abbot and bishop of Mor Gabriel Monastery (r. 1913–1915), was from Kafro Eloyto.
In 1914, 400 Assyrians inhabited Kafro Elayto, as per the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation. There were 80 Assyrian families and 30 Kurdish families in 1915. The Assyrians adhered to the Syriac Orthodox Church. Amidst the Sayfo, the village was surrounded by Kurds led by Yusuf Agha, son of Hasan Shamdin, the owner of Kfar-Gawze, and the Assyrians barricaded themselves in the Church of Mor Ya’qub. As they were unprepared, the Assyrians left the church after five days upon receiving assurances from Yusuf Agha, who subsequently killed their leaders and destroyed the houses in the village.
The village was inhabited by 507 people in 1960. In 1966, there were 720 Turoyo-speaking Christians in 72 families and were served by one priest. It was entirely populated by Assyrians in 1978. By 1987, there were 25 Assyrian families. There may have been Assyrians at Kafro Elayto in 1999, but there were no remaining Assyrians in the village by 2012/2013.
Notable people
- Mor Julius Yeshu Cicek (1942–2005), Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Central Europe
- Mehmet Şimşek (b. 1967), Turkish politician
References
Notes
- ^ Also spelt as Kafri, Kefrê, or Kefré.
- ^ Alternatively transliterated as Käfro ʿēläito, Kafro Eleito, Kafro Eloyto, or Kefro Elayto. Also called Upper Kafra or Upper Kafro or simply Kafra, in contrast with Lower Kafro (Kafro Tahtayo). Nisba: Käfrōyo.
Citations
- ^ Biner (2019), p. x.
- ^ Tan (2018), p. 172; Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 321; Gaunt (2006), p. 231.
- ^ Sinclair (1989), p. 319; Tamcke (2012), p. 18; Keser Kayaalp (2021), p. 163; Ritter (1967), p. 11.
- ^ Barsoum (2008), pp. 18, 30; Gaunt (2006), pp. 231, 232; Palmer (1990), p. xx.
- ^ Ritter (1967), p. 11.
- ^ Tan (2018), p. 172.
- ^ "Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2021" (XLS) (in Turkish). TÜİK. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
- ^ Barsoum (2008), p. 15.
- ^ Sinclair (1989), p. 319; Barsoum (2008), p. 18.
- ^ "Threatened or destroyed churches and monasteries in the Tur Abdin". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch Archdiocese of the Western United States. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
- ^ Keser-Kayaalp (2022), p. 160.
- ^ Keser Kayaalp (2021), p. 163.
- ^ Barsoum (2008), pp. 70–71.
- ^ Barsoum (2008), p. 30.
- ^ Barsoum (2008), pp. 35–36; Birol (2017), p. 164.
- ^ Gaunt (2006), p. 427.
- ^ Courtois (2004), p. 226; Gaunt (2006), p. 231.
- ^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 321.
- ^ Gaunt (2006), pp. 231–232.
- ^ Sinclair (1989), p. 319.
- ^ Courtois (2004), p. 226.
- ^ Courtois (2013), p. 149; Tamcke (2012), p. 18.
Bibliography
- Barsoum, Aphrem (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
- Biner, Zerrin Ozlem (2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Birol, Simon (2017). "Interpretation of the 'Sayfo' in Gallo Shabo's Poem". In David Gaunt; Naures Atto; Soner O. Barthoma (eds.). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire (PDF). pp. 157–177. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- Courtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans. Translated by Vincent Aurora. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
- Courtois, Sébastien de (2013). "Tur Abdin : Réflexions sur l'état présent descommunautés syriaques du Sud-Est de la Turquie, mémoire, exils, retours". Cahier du Gremmamo (in French). 21: 113–150.
- Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
- Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle, eds. (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
- Keser Kayaalp, Elif (2021). Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press.
- Keser-Kayaalp, Elif, ed. (January 2022). Syriac Architectural Heritage at Risk in TurʿAbdin (PDF). Retrieved 8 November 2024.
- Palmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur Abdin. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
- Ritter, Hellmut (1967). Turoyo: Die Volkssprache der Syrischen Christen des Tur 'Abdin (in German). Vol. 1. Franz Steiner Verlag.
- Sinclair, T.A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey. Vol. III. Pindar Press. ISBN 9780907132349.
- Tamcke, Martin (2012). "The Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the 'Seyfo' against the Syrians". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery, ed. Pieter Omtzigt, Markus K. Tozman, Andrea Tyndall (PDF). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 15–25. Retrieved 17 October 2024.
- Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). Pak Ajans Yayincilik Turizm Ve Diş Ticaret Limited şirketi. ISBN 9789944360944.