HISTORY

ANKARA / YEREVAN — Armenian heritage sites in Turkey continue to be vandalized and destroyed. In January, an unknown person offered a historic Armenian Catholic Church for sale in the Turkish city of Bursa at a price of 800,000 USD. This incident has been discussed in Armenia and Turkey since…

By Dr Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union-Tur Levnon During the first two centuries of our era, the language spoken in the north of the Fertile Crescent was gradually Christianized. From Upper Mesopotamia to Phoenicia, the language took the new name: Syriac. However, the linguistic transition toward…

Alert: article contains shocking images By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon Syriac language, Syriac culture, art and awareness were very much alive up till the beginning of the twentieth century. What happened next? During World War I, Lebanon witnessed a genocide, rarely…

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon Liturguia w Qourovo Maronite liturgy is a Syriac, Chalcedonian and Catholic liturgy. Inside the Syriac family, it has its own characteristics that were shaped by centuries of rich history. Strong relations with the Crusaders since the 11th century, and…

This article was published on Asian and African studies blog on November 23, 2020. The original can be found here. By Miriam L. Hjälm The British Library holds an impressive collection of Christian Arabic texts, including many Bible translations which served a variety of communal interests. The character of the…

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon Is there a distinct Lebanese literature, i.e. not Lebanese literature in Arabic or French? Is there a true Syriac Maronite literature? We know a lot about the literature of the Syriacs in general. They were the greatest translators of…

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon Do the Syriac Maronites have a unique character within the more general world of Christian Syriac art and architecture? After observing 36 Syriac Maronite church facades with Syriac epigraphs, we notice the omnipresence of a vertical composition revealing a…

TEL HALAF, Syria — Turkey and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) continuation in their violations against historic and cultural sites in North and East Syria. Over the weekend, Turkish and SNA forces excavated an archaeological hill in the Syriac village of Tel Halaf in the Hasakah countryside, looting antiquities…

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon What is the specificity of Syriac Maronite architecture? What is the correlation between Syriac inscriptions and art? And what is the role of these inscriptions on the facade of Syriac Maronite churches? To answer these fundamental questions, we gathered…

This article was originally published by Aleteia on 23 February 2018. The original can be found here. By Agnès Pinard Legry (23 February 2018) – As the situation gets bogged down in violence and instability in Syria and Iraq, the Middle East is gradually losing its Christian communities. Joseph Yacoub, first…