Zuqnin Monastery was an ancient Christian monastery located just to the north of
Amida,
near the modern-day city of
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province.
Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...
in eastern Turkey.
John of Ephesus
John of Ephesus (or of Asia) ( Greek: Ίωάννης ό Έφέσιος, c. 507 – c. 588) was a leader of the early Syriac Orthodox Church in the sixth century and one of the earliest and the most important historians to write in Syriac. John of ...
was ordained here by
John of Tella in 529.
It is at this monastery that the ''
Zuqnin Chronicle
The ''Zuqnin Chronicle'' is a medieval chronicle written in Classical Syriac language, encompassing the events from Genesis creation narrative, Creation to CE. It was most probably produced in the Zuqnin Monastery near Amida (Mesopotamia), Amida ...
'' was written by a West Syrian monk, probably Joshua the Stylite, in around 775, of which the monastery is most associated with.
The library of the monastery was of considerable renown to scholars in the area, containing many valuable books, including the works of
Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...
,
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
, John of Ephesus and the Chronicle of Zuqnin.
References
History of Diyarbakır Province
Ancient libraries
Syriac Orthodox monasteries in Turkey
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