AN EVALUATION ON TWO CHURCHES IN SILOPİ KÖSRELİ (HASSANA) VILLAGE, ŞIRNAK

Şırnak province, located in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, has a geopolitical and geostrategic importance due to its location. Şırnak, which is in a region where great civilizations were established in the historical process, has been influenced by the cultures of various civilizations at different times and carries the traces of many different civilizations that have survived until today. The subject of our study consists of two churches located in Kösreli (Hassana) Village of Şırnak-Silopi district. It has been determined that these architectural works were not examined in detail by considering them with the Art History Methodology before our study. Since the village where the structures are located is at the foot of the Cudi Mountain, it is very difficult to access, and the location of the churches is sometimes in the private security zone.

Mor Muse Graveyard Church, one of the two churches in the village, is a Nestorian (Assyrian) church said to have been built in the 400s. The second church is the Evangeleta church, one of the first Protestant churches in the region. According to the inscription in the upper left corner of the entrance door of the building, this building was built in 1873.

One of the main reasons why we did this study is that there are churches belonging to two different Christian sects in the same village that we could identify in the town of Silopi, and there is only one Protestant church here. Another important reason is that the Protestant church was examined by us for the first time.

The plan types of both churches included in our study are different from each other. The Protestant Church was built in the Parochial plan type, which is commonly used in Syriac churches, and the Nestorian (Assyrian) church was built in the Nestorian church plan type.

The main walls of these structures were built with rough cut stone material internally and externally, the middle of the walls were strengthened with rubble stone material and were formed with the infill wall technique. It is quite simple in terms of decoration.

Although the churches show similarities with the Syriac and Nestorian churches in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia Region in terms of plan and decoration, they do not overlap with the Armenian churches, which left important architectural works.

Keywords

Şırnak, Mount Judi, Christian, Architecture, Church.