The St. Paul's Church in Konya #2

in #tr6 years ago


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Muslim environment
From the heyday of Konya, the then capital of the Seljuk Turks, there are mosques and medreses with many crosses and pictorial representations of animals and humans. The archaeological museum reveals stones with Christian signs: sun, cross, fish, pelican ... everywhere you can see the coat of arms of the Seljuk Turks, the double eagle, which was also the coat of arms of the Roman / Byzantine emperors. The city is famous for its traditional sutra. The sisters have good contacts with the monastery of the Muslim dervishes: a descendant of the founder Mevlana invites to have tea with the Brotherhood again and again when the sisters visit the Sema (the "Dance of the Dervishes") on Saturday evening. As with the mosques, the city supplies electricity and water free of charge, as well as offering the cleaning of the church and a guardianship, but the latter seldom use the latter. The young people of the community clean church and garden. On Thursday and Friday, the sisters open the church in the afternoon and answer questions from many - v.a. Muslim - visitors available. In the village Sille an Orthodox church with numerous frescoes has been restored as a museum, the descendants of the former Greek inhabitants have also donated icons for the iconostasis. There, good catechesis can be kept there, e.g. for the firm preparation - and for the numerous visitors.

A colorful community on site
St. Paul has a thriving community of Erasmus students (Konya has the largest university in Turkey with about 85,000 students), Christian women married to Muslims, workers and employees, refugees and displaced persons. The service is usually on Sunday at 15.00; often without a priest, v.a. after the decline of tourist groups. Since then, the sisters, especially on holidays, ask a priest from Ankara or Istanbul. Prelate Korten from Antalya and P. Patrice SJ from Trabzon have already helped.

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