Photo Above: Church with a mosque upstairs( Coexistence of faith )
[ In Yogunoluk village of Samandag, Hatay, a mosque of tile roof was built upon the remains of a historical church from Roman Empire. ]
- The church that remained from the time of Roman Empire was restored for use in 1896 after the settlement of the Armenian.
It was not used any more after 1939 when they left the region and it was transformed into a mosque in 1940 by the Muslim settlers. The village Principal Mehmet Karaca said that they covered its roof with tiles without spoiling the original shape and that the mosque was restored in 1961 with concrete.
Karaca said that the pillars, the baptism tub, the confession cabin, priest chair and the lodge were strong and that it could be used by the Armenian too if restored.( Source: DIHA )
In Hatay and its environs today one can find Alevits, Arab Christians (both Orthodox and Catholic), Armenians, Jews, Afghans, Turcoman, and of course Turks. One of the biggest villages of the seven original Armenian strongholds, Yogunoluk, which was densely populated by Armenians in the 1920s, is today a Turcoman village. Fulya Dogruel, who wrote a book about Hatay, says that after 1915, “in order to balance the ethnic composition, Turcoman people were settled in the area.”
( Credit: Talin Suciyan )
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