08/02/2017   Various   No comments

I miss our church bells – Last surviving Armenian of Turkey’s Mardin shares recollections

The Demircis are the only surviving Armenians in Derik, a district in the south-eastern Turkish province Mardin, which used to be home to over 400 Armenian families, gazetesujin.com reports.

Yurshali Demirci, who lives here with her husband, sighs with regret as she remembers the ringing bells of the St Gevorg church which no longer functions.

“Our neighbors say at times ��?Why don’t you say the Muslim prayer?’ I don’t know any Muslim prayer. We, the Armenians, celebrate nuptials in church, but mine was celebrated at home because we didn’t have a priest then. Until quite recently, an aide to the vice patriarch would visit us, but he left too, because of reprisals,” Mrs Demirci remembered.
The woman spoke with pride of her ethnic and religious identity, which she said she would never change with anyother thing on earth.

As early as 50 years ago, one could find Christian Armenian families in Mardin, but most of them had to leave, unable to resist social pressures and religious persecution, she said. Most Armenians settled in Istanbul, which has a big Armenian community with its schools and churches.
“Fifty years ago, one could hear the bells ringing and see the church crowded with Christian Armenians. I miss those days, but now I have kind of got used to loneliness. We were born and grown here, so we do not want to leave our soil. I am happy to be here,” she said.

Mardin, now the capital of the namesake province, is historically a fortress city in upper Messopotamia.

Some, 4,663 Armenians were exiled from here during the Genocide.

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