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Digitizing and Schematizing 
the Archival Material from the 
Late Ottoman Period Found  
in the Monastery of al-Zaʿfarān 
in Southeast Turkey
By Iskandar Bcheiry, ATLA

ABSTR ACT: In the context of combining digital humanities with 
scholarship in history and religion, my paper discusses a plan to create 
a relational database of primary sources that were found in Syriac 
Orthodox monastery in southeast Turkey. The primary sources are in 
the form of archives of correspondence to and from six Syriac Ortho-
dox patriarchs during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 
This massive archive comprises around 20,000 documents, which are 
still unpublished, and their content is mostly unknown to the schol-
arly world. In this proposed database of the Syriac patriarchal archives, 
the data extracted from the sources will be stored according to a rela-
tional aspect. The big picture of this project is to create a tool not only 
to understand many aspects of the life of the Syriac community in the 
Middle East and in direct relationship with other communities who lived 
beside them or interacted with them, but also to develop a tool for other 
scholars in different fields and geographical areas to interact with this 
relational database according to their own interests.

INTRODUCTION

In April 2002, I had the opportunity to examine a collection of Arabic 
and Syriac manuscripts in the Library of the Syriac Orthodox Church 
of the Forty Martyrs in Mardin, the Library of the Syriac Orthodox 
Church of St. Mary in Diyarbakir, and the Library of the monastery 



Papers and Presentations  51

of al-Za‘farān in southeast Turkey. This was all due to permission 
from the late Patriarch Ignatius Zakkā I Iwās (d. 2014) and a grant 
provided for my research by the Italian Institute for Philosophical 
Studies, Naples, Italy. Besides the subject of my intended study and 
examination, I had a glimpse of the archives that were stored in the 
library of the Church of Forty Martyrs in Mardin in the form of reports, 
letters, and communications which were originally brought from 
Dayr al-Za‘farān, which is located eight kilometers east of the city of 
Mardin. A few years later, in 2010, a team of researchers led by Arch-
bishop Yuhannā Ibrahīm of Aleppo examined and photographed 
nearly 20,000 documents in Mardin and Dayr al-Za‘farān. At this year’s 
ATLA Annual Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, I illuminated the 
importance of this historical collection. I also presented a basic plan 
of a database for the historical records extracted from the materials 
of this collection of documents.

BRIEF HISTORY

The Syriac Christians are the indigenous inhabitants of Syria and 
Mesopotamia who embraced Christianity in the first centuries of its 
history. During the fifth century, because of the Christological contro-
versies as the result of the councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon 
in 451, the Syriac Christians became divided among Nestorians, Chal-

FIGURE 1 Southeast Turkey and the surrounding regions 



52  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

cedonians, and non-Chalcedonians. By the early sixth century, most 
Syriacs of east Syria and Upper Mesopotamia supported the non-
Chalcedonian Christology, whose greatest theologian at the time was 
Severus of Antioch (c. 465–538). During the rule of Emperor Justin 
I (519–521), as well under the rule of Emperor Justinian (527–565), 
the Syriac non-Chalcedonian Christians experienced persecution. 
In the second half of the sixth century, Jacob Baradeo organized the 
Non-Chalcedonian Syriac Orthodox church by ordaining thousands 
of deacons, priests, and bishops; in this way he consolidated the Non-
Chalcedonian faith and revived the Syriac Orthodox church. 

The Arab Muslim conquest of the Byzantine and Persian territory in 
the Near East in the seventh century stopped the Byzantine persecu-
tions. However, the Christian Syriacs, as well as other Christian groups 
and Jews, found themselves as a protected non-Muslim community 
under Muslim rule. The Syriac Christians experienced difficult times 
during the conflict between the Crusaders, Mamelukes, and Mongols 
during the twelve and thirteenth centuries. The Mongol invasion led 
by Tamerlane (d. 1405) in the late fourteenth century caused great 
destruction and losses. By the sixteenth century, the Syriac Christians 
were ruled by the Ottomans, who dominated the entire Near East. By 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Christian Syriacs were 
greatly weakened, and their main presence was limited to few regions 
in Syria and Mesopotamia such as in southeastern Anatolia, western 
Syria, and northern Iraq. During the twentieth century, a radical demo-
graphic shift occurred as the result of systematic massacres by the 

FIGURE 2 The monastery of Dayr al-Za‘farān in Southeast Turkey



Papers and Presentations  53

Ottoman government during the First War World (1915–1918). Around 
100,000 Syriac Orthodox perished during this massacre. During the 
early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate 
was transferred to Homs, Syria, in 1933, and then in 1959 to Damas-
cus, where it remains today. Nowadays, the Syriac Christians are found 
in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, with a noticeable presence in 
Germany and Sweden.

THE MONASTERY OF DAYR AL-ZA‘FARĀN

 The monastery of Dayr al-Za‘farān is located eight kilometers east of 
the city of Mardin in southeast Turkey, situated on the hills overlook-
ing the northeastern Syrian plains. Dayr al-Za‘farān was originally 
built on the pre-Christian foundations of a pagan temple dedicated 
to the worship of the sun, which may date to around 1000 b.c. The 
temple complex was later used by the Romans as a fort, and after 
they abandoned it, a certain monk named Morī Šlaymūn converted 
the buildings into a monastery. Though it was originally named after 
Morī Šlaymūn, the monastery was later named for Morī Šananyā 
(Ananias), the metropolitan bishop of Mardin and the surrounding 
region (793–800) who rebuilt and renovated the monastery. Since the 
fifteenth century it has been called the “Saffron Monastery” due to 
the saffron-colored stone of the buildings. From 1160 until 1932, the 
monastery became the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. Today 
the monastery is the seat of the bishopric of Mardin, and besides being 
a religious building, the monastery is also an important tourist land-
mark visited by thousands of people each year.

SYRIAC ORTHODOX PATRIARCHAL ARCHIVES

The library of the monastery of al-Za’faran and the Church of the Forty 
Martyrs in Mardin are not only depositories of a large collection of 
Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, but they also are places for more than 
20,000 documents of archives that were collected mostly during the 
nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. Much 
of this archive is in the form of correspondence to and from the patri-
archate over a period that extends more than a century beginning from 
the early 1820s. Being the seat of the Patriarchs of the Syrian Orthodox 
Church for over nearly seven centuries, Dayr al-Za‘faran was the major 
depository of church documents for a long time. Between 2005 and 



54  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

2010 a team led by Archbishop Yuhanna Ibrahim and Dr. Khalid Denno 
examined much of this collection of archives, taking nearly 20,000 
images. A preliminary description of the archives and their impor-
tance was made by Dr. Denno in his book Syrian Orthodox Christians in 
the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis Then Revival (Gorgias Eastern 
Christian Studies), published by Gorgias Press in 2017.

THE CONTENTS AND SIGNIFICANCE  
OF THE ARCHIVES 
The contents of the letters, reports, and communications found in 
the archives describe the daily life of the Syriac Christian community 
chiefly during the nineteenth century. The archives also report about 
the Syriac Christians’ relationship with the Ottoman government in 
Constantinople and the districts in southeastern Anatolia, the rela-
tionship with the neighboring Muslim community, and the relation-
ship with other Christian communities such as Armenians, Chaldeans, 
Nestorians, Catholics, and Protestants. The letters were addressed to 
the patriarch of the day from different people such as bishops, abbots, 
heads of monasteries, priests, monks, deacons, secular leaders in the 
Syriac communities, and keepers responsible for collecting donations 
and patriarchal dues, as well as from Muslim people, functionaries of 
the government, and foreign counselors. The archives are important 
from social, religious, historical, political, topographical, cultural, 
religious, and juridical aspects and provide valuable insight into the 
contemporary life of the Syriacs in many dimensions.

EXAMPLES OF ISSUES AND TOPICS FOUND  
IN THE ARCHIVES

Reports about local conflicts in villages
Petitions against the agents and keepers of the patriarchs
Petitions from prisoners
Petitions because of injustice and assaults
Petitions against clergy: priests and monks because of finan-
cial issues
Appeals against Armenians’ assaults and pressure
Reports about collecting the dues and the incomes of monas-
teries and churches



Papers and Presentations  55

Petitions regarding cases in courts
Reports about family disputes
Reports about ecclesiastic appointments
Reports about issues and news from India
Correspondences from the Russian counselor in Aleppo
Reports about disputes with Syriacs converted to  
Catholicism
Reports about churches and monasteries’ endowments
Reports about the patriarch’s visits and journeys
Reports about rebuilding and renewing churches 
Protesting bishops because of their bad management
Petitions for marital issues and juridical decisions
Reports about local church administrations
Conflicts within the same congregation in different places
Petitions regarding social and ethical conducts
Petitions against bandit’s assaults
Petitions about the administration of monasteries
Petitions from Muslim people asking for help from the  
patriarch
Petitions about selling and renting lands, houses, and pits
Petitions from women against their husbands
Petitions for peacemaking between Muslims and Christians 
in local villages
Reports about Catholic missionary activities among the local 
people
Reports about Protestant missionary activities among the 
local people
Reports about assaults against monks by the local governors
Reports about assaults against shepherds and the seizing of 
their livestock
Petitions regarding the collection of the agriculture products 
in some villages
Petitions against the local Muslim governors and their preju-
dices against Christians 



56  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

Petitions in seeking financial support for priests of certain 
local parishes

Reports about kidnapping women and forced marriages

Petitions about cases of marriage between Syriac people with 
other Christian groups such as Armenians, Catholics, and 
Protestants 

Reports about the expenses of restoring churches and 
monasteries 

Petitions to the patriarch asking his interference toward the 
government 

Petitions and reports about juridical matters and legal cases 
in courts

Petitions describing the legal authority of the patriarch in the 
civil law courts

Creating a database of the archives

The goal of my project is to create a database in which the data 
extracted from the sources will be stored. After capturing the data 
from the sources and putting it into the created database, it would be 
important to look for a relationship between the data stored in the 
database. The big picture of this project is to create a tool not only 
to understand many aspects of the life of the Syriac community in 
southeastern Anatolia and in direct relationship with other communi-
ties who lived beside them or interacted with them, but also for other 
scholars in different fields and geographical areas to interact with this 
relational database according to their own interests.

KEY ASPECTS

The data of the Archives’ contents would be structured and presented 
according to several key aspects: period; sender; geographic prov-
enance; subject matter; and language of correspondence:

PERIOD

The letters are defined chronologically according to the reign of patri-
archs, because the date is often not stated, while the name of the 
patriarch is almost always mentioned. The timeframe for the reigns 
of patriarchs under question follows.



Papers and Presentations  57

 1.  Elias II (1838–1847)

 2.  Jacob II (1847–1871)

 3.  Peter III/IV (1872–1894)

 4.  Abdul Masih II (1895–1903)

 5.  Abdullah II (1906–1915)

 6.  Elias III (1917–1932)

An example of geographical locations found in the archives

LOCATION PRESENT NAME
DISTRICT/PROVINCE  

(most of the locations are in Turkey)

‘Alūzī Alluz Bismil/Diyarbakir

‘Amīrīn Kocapinar Cizre/Sirnak

‘Amsū Guvercin Center/Batman

‘Arbāyyah Alayurt Dargecit/Mardin

‘Arnes Bağlarbaşı Midyat/Mardin

‘Arnez Beşpınar Besiri/Batman

‘Ayn Sarī Pinarbasi Idil/Sirnak

‘Ayn Ward Gülgöze Midyat/Mardin

‘Ayndār Ağaçlıpınar Kurtalan/Siirt

‘Azkī Değirmenüstü Besiri/Batman

Al-Ḫerbah Harapjar Kurtalan/Siirt

Al-Ḥsayniyyah Huseynan Silvan/Diyarbakir

Al-Hūb Asmadere Besiri/Batman

Al-Ḥusayniyyah Aydemir Kurtalan/Siirt

Al-Ibrāhīmiyyah Isiklar Center/Mardin

Al-Krīdiyyah Köşetarla Center/Batman

Al-Malāḥah Yunluce Lice/Diyarbakir

Al-Mareğ Suluyazi Sirvan/Siirt

Anḥel Yemişli Midyat/Mardin

Arbū Taskoy Nusaybin/Mardin

Aznāwūr Sinirtepe Nusaybin/Mardin 

Badlīs Bitlis Center/Bitlis

Bāfāwā Kayadere Ömerli/Mardin



58  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

SOURCE (SENDER) IDENTITY

Letters to the patriarch of the day came from different people, such as 
bishops, priests, monks, and deacons; church keepers and commu-
nity notables; ordinary folk, individuals, and groups of individuals; 
other Christians and Christian churches; Muslim neighbors; public 
and regional authorities; foreign diplomatic sources; and the Sublime 
Porte.

GEOGRAPHIC PROVENANCE

Most of the letters came from southeastern Anatolia, while a smaller 
number of letters came from Iraq, Syria, and Istanbul. 

LANGUAGE

Most of the documents were chiefly written in Arabic Garshuni, which 
means in Arabic language but in Syriac script. However, there are docu-
ments written in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, or Syriac; a few documents 
from India and Europe in English; and some letters in Armenian.

FIGURE 3 Geographic 
provenance percentage

Geographic Provenance

FIGURE 4 Languages

Language



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FIGURE 5 An example of basic database contents

FIGURE 6 An example of basic database contents



60  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The archives that are preserved in the monastery of Dayr al-Za‘farān 
and the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Mardin bear a special inter-
est not only for the history of the Syriac Christian community but 
also for Ottoman history. The archives of letters and correspondence 
contain an immense amount of material from ordinary people, and 
thus they present the state of a society viewed from below. Creating a 
database for this archive will benefit a diverse group of people. It will 
provide access to a primary source of information about the histori-
cal, cultural, and religious diversity of the Middle East. It will offer an 
unlimited mine of historical information to scholars and academics, 
which will generate new scholarly interest in Syriac and Ottoman 
studies. Finally, the database will bring new ways of understanding 
history through digital approaches.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barsoum, Ignatius Aphram, History of the Za‘faran Monastery. Trans-
lated by Moosa, Matti. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 
2008.

Bcheiry, Iskandar. “Relational Database of Syriac and Arabic Histor-
ical Registers,” ATLA Proceedings 71 (2017): 32-38.

Bcheiry, Iskandar. “The Syriac Community in Batman and its Vicin-
ity According to the Archives of the Ecclesiastical Consecrations 
Conserved in the Church of Forty Martyrs in Mardin, South East 
of Turkey,” Adnan Cevik ed., I. Uluslararası Batman ve Çevresi Tarih ve 
Kültür Sempozyumu Bildiriler, c.1. Istanbul (2009): 410-418.

Dinno, Khalid. Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period 
and Beyond: Crisis Then Revival (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies). 
Piscataway, N.J: Gorgias Press, 2017.



Papers and Presentations  61

APPENDIX A sample of historical documents: Three examples of 
letters to patriarch Ignatius ‘Abd al-Masīh al-Qal‘atmarāwī (1895-
1903) with the signatures of clergy and secular leaders of some villages 
in southeast Anatolia.


