Mor Ephrem Monastery
We always praise the old and ancient buildings, but have we ever thought about shedding light on the new ones?
Two weeks ago, I visited Mor Ephrem Monastery in Maarat Saidnaya, which is a kind of new one, and that visit was one of the greatest I have ever made.
Mor Ephrem Monastery is basically to teach the male youths and prepare them to become monks and priests.
The campus of the monastery includes a church which was built in the memory of Sayfo Genocide, ST. Paul and Peter Church, meeting halls, the Little Angel House orphanage, and a cave contains a piece of the girdle (Zunoro) of the Virgin Mary.
In an interview with Archbishop Yacoob Babawi, the Patriarchal Vicar for monk Affairs and the Administration of Mor Ephrem Theological Seminary, he said: “Mor Aphrem Monastery was established in 1996 under the auspices of the Patriarch Ignatius Zakka Iwas.
The monastery is a theological seminary, which means that the students study and live in it at the same time, and it prepares its students by teaching the human sciences, theological sciences, the Bible, in addition to the Syriac, Arabic and English that are the basic languages.”
When asked about the Sayfo genocide church, Archbishop Yakoob said: “On the 13th of June, 2015, his holiness Mor Ignatius Ephrem II, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, inaugurated this building in commemoration of the martyrs of the Syriac genocide Sayfo”. He added that “Every year in June 15th, the date of the genocide, the monastery hold a prayer in memory of the martyrs of the genocide to remember our Syriac and Armenian ancestors in Turkey who fought with courage for their beliefs and faith in order to us to learn from them”.
It is noteworthy that the third floor of the monastery is a chapel, called Mor Ephrem Chapel, where daily prayers are being raised.
Now we come to the most interesting part of our article; the man-made cave that contains a piece of the girdle (Zunoro) of the Virgin Mary.
How did we get the girdle in the first place? According to the church traditions, St. Thomas was going to attend the funeral of the Virgin Mary when he witnessed the Virgin Mary’s body taken by the angels and raised to heaven. St. Thomas asked for a sign to show to the apostles so he was given her girdle and then showed it to the apostles and convinced them. In 394 A.D., the girdle was kept with the relics of St. Thomas in Edessa (Greece), then in 476 A.D., the monk Daoud of Turabdin brought the girdle to St. Mary’s church in Homs. Since then, the church has been known as the Church of the Lady of the Girdle (Umm Al-Zunnar).
Later, due to violent persecution against the church, the girdle was buried within the altar of the church in Homs in an urn for safe keeping.
In 1852, during the renovation of the church, the girdle was uncovered but was placed back in the altar in a stone container along with an inscription about it in Garshuini (Arabic text written in Syriac alphabet).
The girdle remained buried until the late Patriarch Mor Ignatius Ephrem I, noticing the inscription, discovered it in 1953. The girdle was found wrapped around itself (74×5×0.3 cm, light beige, woven with wool and silk and embroidered with golden threads).
As for the piece of the girdle in Mor Ephrem Monastery, it is part of the girdle’s threads found at the bottom of the above-mentioned vessel and reserved at the Patriarchate. On August 15, 2017, on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Patriarch Mor Ignatius Ephrem II consecrated the Altar of the Virgin Mary in the grotto of the Lady of the girdle.
Najla khoury
