Garo Paylan visits St. Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir
Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish parliament representing the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), visited the St. Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir.
“I visited the St. Giragos Church in Diyarbakir to get acquainted with the ongoing renovation work,” the MP wrote on Facebook.
The St. Giragos Church was built in 1376. The belfry of the largest church in the Near East was destroyed in 1913 by lightning, after which the Armenians built a new belfry with a bell made from gold and copper. However, in 1915 the Turks struck the bell at the spot that lightning had struck it. They destroyed the belfry just because it stood taller than the towers of the mosques nearby.
The church was renovated with the funds of the local Armenian community and the local Kurdish-controlled municipality of the time and reopened in 2011 after 32 years of inactivity but was seriously damaged in clashes between the Turkish and Kurdish forces in 2015. Now it is again undergoing renovation.