Elbeğendi, Midyat

Elbeğendi (; ) is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province in Turkey. The village is populated by Syriacs and had a population of 46 in 2021. It is located atop Mount Izla in the region of Beth Rishe in Tur Abdin.

In the village, there is the Church of Mor Yaqub and Mor Barsaum and the Chapel of Our Lady.

History

In the Syriac Orthodox patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that Kafro Tahtoyo (today called Elbeğendi) had 17 households, who paid 22 dues, and was served by the Church of Morī Ya‘qūb, but did not have a priest. In 1914, it was inhabited by 250 Syriacs, according to the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation. They belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church. It was located in the ''kaza'' of Habab (attached to the ''kaza'' of Nusaybin). Amidst the Sayfo, the village was attacked and some survivors took refuge at the nearby Monastery of Mor Malke whilst others went to ‘Ayn-Wardo. Several hundred Christians at the Mor Malke Monastery, mostly refugees from Kafro Tahtoyo, retaliated and attacked Sheweske on 21 August. About 8 families returned to the village in 1916.

There were 274 residents in 1960. By 1966, 310 Turoyo-speaking Christians in 37 families inhabited Kafro Tahtoyo. By 1994, only a few families remained in the village and most of the houses had been abandoned. The village was forcibly evacuated by the Turkish army in 1995 due to the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. The villagers emigrated abroad to Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. The village, including the church and its graves, was consequently plundered and nearly completely destroyed and all the trees in the surrounding area were cut down.

In February 2002, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Timotheus Samuel Aktaş and two representatives from the village requested permission to return to Kafro Tahtoyo from the Governor of Mardin. The application was approved by Temel Koçaklar, the '' vali'' of Mardin, on 28 February 2002. The construction of new homes and renovations to the church began in 2004. In 2006, 17 Syriac families returned to the village from Augsburg and Göppingen in Germany, and Trüllikon and Zürich in Switzerland. To help revive the local economy, some returnees started businesses in the village. The Chapel of Our Lady at Kafro Tahtoyo was consecrated on 15 August 2008 with the financial support of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg. A Syriac man from Kafro Tahtoyo was shot by Kurdish shepherds in 2008 after he had instructed them to take their herds off his land. In late July 2019, Syriac properties in Kafro Tahtoyo were struck by suspected arson attacks.

Demography

The following is a list of the number of Syriac families that have inhabited Kafro Tahtoyo per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in ''Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World'', as noted in the bibliography below.

*1915: 30
*1966: 37
*1970: 46
*1978: 44
*1979: 37
*1981: 23
*1987: 15
*1992: 5
*2013: 12

Notable people

* Iskender Alptekin (1961–2010), Syriac politician

References

Notes

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{{Midyat District

Assyrian communities in Turkey
Tur Abdin
Neighbourhoods in Midyat District
Places of the Sayfo
Forcibly depopulated communities