page_title: Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895)
section_title: Stance of the Syriac Orthodox Church
hierarchical_section_title: Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895) / Stance of the Syriac Orthodox Church
caption_attribution_description: English: Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Afram I Barsoum, (1887-1957).
context_page_description: Massacres of Diyarbakır were massacres that took place in the Diyarbekir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire between the years of 1894 and 1896. The events were part of the Hamidian massacres and targeted the vilayet's Christian population – Armenians and Assyrians.
  The massacres were initially directed at Armenians, instigated by Ottoman politicians and clerics under the pretext of their desire to dismantle the state, but they soon changed into a general anti-Christian pogrom as the killing moved to the Diyarbekir Vilayet and surrounding areas of Tur Abdin, which was inhabited by Assyrian/Syriac Christians. Contemporary accounts put the total number of Assyrians killed between 1894–96 at around 25,000.
context_section_description: The official story of the Syriac Orthodox Church about the events varies considerably from views shared by historians and contemporaries. In his version of the events compiled in the 1940s, Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem I Barsoum tries to confront the official Turkish version. He mentioned that Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II hurried to Diyarbakır upon hearing the news of an Armenian massacre and sent a telegram to the Sultan obtaining an order to protect the Assyrians. He then goes to compare the Church to Noah's Ark, for being a shelter of its sons.
  In father Armalet's version, the Patriarch sent a messenger to the governor, but he was killed, the message however reached the governor who asked for the Patriarch to meet him. The latter crossed the city, walking over the corpses of dead Christians. The governor then welcomed him and asked him to take refuge with his followers in the main Assyrian church of the city.
  According to an oral tradition, the massacres caused the patriarch to lose his mind and he started drinking after he returned to Mardin and was later deposed. He then went to Kerala in India where he nominated new bishops, resulting in a schism among Saint Thomas Christians that still exists.
  According to Patriarch Barsoum, Tur Abdin was also spared when two Assyrian notables sent a request for protection from the Ottoman authorities in Diyarbakır. The governor later sent a force that expelled the Kurds and guarded the villages until April 1896.
  Several sources mention that the Ottoman authorities had forced the senior clerics, including the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church to sign official documents stating that the chaos was caused by an Armenian revolt. This led to a widespread contempt among Christians who occupied churches and prevented the clergy from celebrating the mass. Some priests were even manhandled by them. This was one of the reasons put forward by the Ottoman authorities to justify some of the killings.
caption: Ignatius Afram I Barsoum.
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