Syriacs in Tirbespiyê build a church with their own means

The Syriacs in the Tirbespiyê district’s Shelhomiya village are building a new church with their own means.

In the Armenian, Syriac and Yazidi massacres between 1914 and 1920 in Syria and Turkey by the Ottoman Empire, thousands of families migrated to Rojava and Northern Syria including dozens of Syriac families who settled in the Shelhomiya village in Tirbespiyê.

Shelhomiya is a Syriac village that lies 5 km to the north of the Tirbespiyê district under the Qamishlo Canton.

The church in the village had suffered damages due to the weather, and the residents started to raise money five months ago to build a new church which they call “Al Azra and Qidis Meraho”. The construction is 70% complete.

On the construction of the church, villager Heysem Zeytuni said: “The old church was ancient, it was unusable anymore. So we raised 35 million Syrian Liras among ourselves to build a new church. Friends abroad also helped.”

Heysem thanked everybody who supported the construction of the church.