Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
Principal town of
nahiye, later kaza) covering the central
part of Ṭur ʿAbdin and it is today the administrative center of a district
(ilçe) within the province of Mardin. The
municipality of Midyat today includes the traditionally Christian township
of Midyat proper and Muslim Estel ca. 3 km. to the west.
An early ascetic associated with Midyat is the stylite Abel (Hobil, end of
5th cent.), who, according to the ‘Life of Samuel of Qarṭmin’, received a
visit while on his pillar from young
Ṭuro d-Rom), the teacher of
A bishopric specifically for Midyat is first mentioned as one of the six sees
that separated to form the patriarchate of Ṭur ʿAbdin in the schism of 1364.
Of the five patriarchs of Ṭur ʿAbdin between 1584 and 1791, four were from
Midyat. Since 1923, Midyat has been the seat of the bishops of Ṭur ʿAbdin
along with the
Tfinkdji reported in 1914 that in a total population of 8,000, there were 6,000 Syr. Orth., 450 Protestants, and about 100 each of Syr. Catholics and Chaldeans. Midyat lost a large part of its population in the Sayfo, but until the 1960s Christians continued to constitute the majority of the population. In 2005, there were reported to be ca. 100 Christian families in a total population of over 50,000.
The churches within the township are: 1. Mort Shmuni (Syr. Orth. cathedral);
2. Mor Barṣawmo (near center of town, rebuilt in 1943); 3. Mor Aksnoyo (