Ayla Jean Yackley
A legal battle over the ownership of dozens of
churches, monasteries and other property in southeastern Turkey has
embroiled one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Turkish authorities have seized approximately 50
properties, totaling hundreds of thousands of square meters, from the
Syriac Orthodox Church on grounds their ownership deeds had lapsed,
church and community leaders said.
An appeal by the fifth-century Mor Gabriel,
one of the oldest working monasteries in the world, against the
confiscation was rejected in May by a government commission charged with
liquidating the assets.
