User:Kellynz/Mar Gabriel (monastery)

A Syrian Orthodox monastery in south-eastern Anatolia, Turkey. The monastery is named after Mar Gabriel (593-667CE), one of its Bishops. The monastery is also known locally as Deyrulumur (the Church of Umur). The abbey was originally founded in 397AD, making it the oldest surviving Syrian Orthodox monastery. Until recently, the monastery was inhabited by both monks and nuns who occupied separate wings, and visited by lay brethren and pupils at the monastery's school of religion and Aramaic language. The working monastery was surrounded by orchards, vineyards, nut trees and olive groves.

Architecture
The monastery complex is composed of several buildings, churches and memorial chambers. The high-walled monastery is also a fortress which has withstood marauding Persian, Arab, Mongol and Timurid hordes, and more recently, attacks by the PKK and Islamists in the 1990s.

The Gabriel Church was built by the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I in 512CE. It includes architectural features such as the wing of the choir as the narthex, a transverse nave, central apse and two annexes.

St Mary's.

To the north of the inner courtyard are the memorial chambers of Egyptian monks and forty martyrs.

The Empress Theodora is thought to have endowed the rectangular dome structure with an octagonal interior.

Relics
The monastery contains several sacred relics. During the 5th and 6th centuries the monks were forced to fight the local villagers for the relics.

Mar Gabriel's arm is buried in the Cemetary of the Martyrs. There is a small aperture beneath the capping stone of the grave where villagers still come to take the dust of the saint, as it is believed that Mar Gabriel has power over demons and sickness.

St John the Egypt's torso is held in a tomb in the monastery. Local women who are afflicted with infertility come to the nuns for a blessing from St John, who is believed to have powers of fertility. The nuns place a bowl of water on the saint's tomb for an hour, then fill the skull of the saint with the water and pour it over the woman's head.