A Pilgrimage to Syriac and Armenian Christianity in Eastern Turkey

Istanbul is in a unique location geographically, bridging Europe with Asia. Not only that, it is centrally located on the historic Silk Road and has served to meaningfully connect very different civilizations and cultures over millennia. 

We were coming to Turkey at the time of the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice, an important annual occasion for Muslims, symbolizing the obedience of Abraham to God and the submission of Ishmael. We were to experience this holiday festival first hand much later in our travels when we arrived in Tur Abdin. Whilst the idea of such animal sacrifice now seems anathema to the Western Christian, there are more similarities between Christianity and Islam than many realize. For a start they are both Abrahamic faiths, sharing the same God, although some would claim that Islam is merely a heretical form of Christianity. Then again some Muslims claim that the Christians are heretical in their Trinitarian approach to God, in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therein lie tensions and intolerances rather than the building of respect and understanding.

It wasn’t until I read William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain that I realized the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam, the close affinities between these two religions, how the Islamic culture was forged in the Eastern homelands of Christianity. 

Christianity was after all and first of all an oriental faith. We forget this in the West with our current demonization of Islam and the threat of Muslim fundamentalism. When Dalrymple underwent the travels which formed the basis of his book, in the late 1990’s, the Eastern Christians were fleeing to safer countries in the face of persecution and hostility from the Islamic establishment. Now the future looks a little more secure for Christians in this part of the world.


We were here as a small group from our Anglican Diocese, our intent to make a pilgrimage first to the abandoned ruins of Armenian Christianity in the North East of Turkey, then to experience at first hand the flourishing Syriac Church of the Tur Abdin region of South East Turkey, now showing signs of dynamic growth after decades of persecution and sad decline. 

I hoped that I for one would understand much more clearly by the end of the pilgrimage the dynamics and history of the two greatest religions of the world, from the places we were to visit.

As we flew from Istanbul eastwards to Erzurum the seemingly vast empty countryside and dark mountain ranges soon became hidden from view by white fluffy meringue clouds scudding by below us; the clear blue sky above gave little hint of the cold that was to confront us on touch down. As we neared Erzurum and came once more below the clouds there was a patchwork quilt of fields spread out below us, in all shades of green and brown, and for the first time in Turkey we could see snow dusting the distant mountain tops. The temperature when we left London was 16.5C. It was now 9C, and worse was to come. I was glad I’d packed some thick warm cardigans but they were deep in my suitcase. Gulgun met us at the airport. She was to be our able guide for the next nine days, with Mustafa our driver behind the wheel of the comfortable and spacious coach we now boarded and which was to accompany us throughout the trip.
Over the course of the next few days and weeks I shall be telling the complete and fully illustrated story of our pilgrimage.. 
Do join me on my journey and I welcome comments as long as they follow normal rules of decency...

The photo by the way is the view from our first ski resort hotel room near Erzurum looking out to the ski slopes waiting for their first snow...

Religion and Spirituality

Religion and spirituality are such slippery words. Most would think they know what is meant by religion, but are not so sure how much religion has to do with spirituality, if at all.

What is religion?

When many people think of religion they think first about outdated institutions, with strict and inflexible dogma, dry rituals, boring sermons. Then they may think of buildings, of mosques and cathedrals, churches (perhaps cold and musty and expensive to maintain!) and synagogues. And many will believe all this to be irrelevant in today’s world. They could not be further from the truth in very many cases.
Mine is a vibrant church, full of joy and worship, with the sounds and smells of choir and incense, all offered to the glory of God. Our different styles of service cater for many different tastes and needs. And the church is where, along with many others, I find my spiritual nourishment.
But it is certainly true that the local Christian church has ceased to be relevant to very many people, and is no longer the centre of community life. Many worshippers drifted away in the second half of the twentieth century. Some simply felt the whole experience to be irrelevant to their lives, and many of these were our youngsters as they grew up, and left home and church. Others became the “spiritual without being religious” group and another group felt that they could better follow the teachings of Jesus outside the formal church. The biggest tragedy of all was the way the church lost its youngsters and this still challenges us today; how to retain our youth when they grow up.

“The majority of…religions…ultimately rest upon the foundation of…a primary goal of enhancing people’s spiritual growth. Religion consists of the institutionalized structures, norms, leadership roles, rituals and the like that have emerged from that basic function.”(1)
We are all intrinsically spiritual beings, and one only has to look around in the world, in our media, on our book- shelves, in the market place, to see the significant role that spirituality plays in many lives. So it would seem that the church is not satisfying that need. The church clearly needs to change and I will come back to this later.

P. Mehta in defining religion wrote that it need not be confined to the established great religions of the world, “still less of the organized churches claiming authority to lay down what is or is not religious truth…whatever purifies and perfects a man, relates him fully to life and allows the realization of the Transcendent, is Religion.”(2)

But it is true that religion can become “a closed system, a dualistic cult that protects and distracts its adherents from reality” where spirituality is equated with holiness of life instead of religiosity, where spirituality is seen as an overarching phenomenon within which religion has but a small part to play.(3)

And it is also true that not every one who is religious considers themselves to be spiritual.

So What is spirituality?

My favourite definition of spirituality is to be found in J Astley’s Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology, where he defines spirituality as “the way we hold the what of our faith.”(4) I also like John Swinton’s attempt at defining spirituality by what it does, rather than what it is, that it represents something “missing” in our lives.(5) And that we can use that missing element to help us care and educate more, to learn to treat people as human beings; to make a positive difference in the world. This of course is a matter dear to my own heart, explored in great detail elsewhere in relation to healthcare, economics, community, creativity, faith, and nature.(6)

In defining spirituality, words and terms such as “search for meaning and purpose,” the transcendent, soul, consciousness and interconnectedness of all beings, the numinous, divinity, God, inner peace, and perhaps many others will variously spring to mind. So spirituality is also used in a vast range of contexts. It is certainly to be found within the established religions and wisdom traditions, the Muslim Sufi for example, in the great Christian mystics, or the Jewish Kabbalah. These not only provide a rich supply of spiritual experience, they can and do play a part in nurturing and kindling spirituality.

But it is also found divorced from religion, amongst those who say they are spiritual but not religious. Perhaps you are one of these.

And spirituality can be secular, although even in seeking a secular definition of spirituality a transcendent dimension can be acknowledged, that may “include the traditional view of a personal God.”(!)(7)

David J. Hufford, in ‘An analysis of the field of spirituality, religion and health,’ defines Spirituality as the personal relationship to the transcendent and Religion as the community, institutional, aspect of spirituality
Thus spirituality is the more general term, it includes religion, and spirituality is a core aspect of religion. This does not deny that there are “spiritual but not religious”
individuals or that extrinsically religious people may not be especially spiritual.”

We need to try to couple religion and what I would like to call for the moment genuine spirituality back together again. And that is where the church needs to change and become more relevant again. But how can it do this? That will be the subject of another post.

1. Journal for the Study of Spirituality (JSS) volume 1.1, 2011, p.98 Hunt citing McBeis article
2. P. Mehta The Heart of Religion, p. 28.

3. Brian Taylor 1996 Setting the Gospel Free,cited by J Williams p. 99 JSS

4. J Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p. 39, (Cited by John Williams “From Habitus to Critique”, in JSS p. 99)
5. John Swinton, “What is Missing from our Practice? Spirituality as Presence and Absence,” Journal for the Study of Spirituality, volume 1.1, 2011, p. 13.
6. Healing this Wounded Earth
7. Elkins et al Journal for the Study of Spirituality volume 1.1, 2011, p. 58

Judaism and Creation

So now we come to the Judaism views on God's creation:

Jews believe that the entire universe is the work of the Creator, and therefore to love God must mean to love everything He has created, including the inanimate, plants, animals and man. This core belief is behind the Jewish attitude to environmental issues. They also believe that nature in all its beauty has been created for man, and it is, therefore, wrong for man to spoil it. Moreover, man’s connection to nature can restore him to his original character, to a natural state of happiness and joy.

In the current environmental crisis, Jewish values and laws are seen to be paramount. ‘If the proper course is followed, man will not forfeit his opportunity to live a life of comfort in his environment, nor will the environment be uncomfortable with man.’
Judaism teaches that it is wrong to over exploit the earth’s resources, or behave in such a way as to destroy any species, since all have been created for some purpose. Jews understand the vital importance of preserving the natural balance of creation.

So in the three great Abrahamic religions we see a common theme as regards their relationship with the environment, in the need to preserve it; although the Jewish teaching seems a little more materialistic and dare I say a little egocentric when compared with the Christian ideal? Is that fair comment I wonder? Although I do like the way the writer here quoted has expressed the relationship between man and the environment as symbiotic. It truly is, and the sooner man really and deeply realizes this truth the better it will be for this mother earth that we ravage and wound so deeply in so many ways.Note also the expressed need to love the inanimate as well as the animate amongst God's creations, meaning I guess the mountains, the streams and the oceans. They are inextricably linked of course with the animate life around and within them. And I certainly agree with the idea that nature is restorative and healing. I'm sure many of us can relate to that and I've written quite a bit more about that in my book.

Professor Nahum Rakover, an Orthodox legalist and Torah/Talmud scholar, was appointed by the World Jewish Congress to write a very extensive and comprehensive statement on ecology in Judaism for Faith in Conservation: New Approaches to Religions and the Environment 2003, Palmer, Martin with Victoria Finlay, from which the above information and short extract have been taken.