About the Kanīsat Mār Quzmā wa-Damiyānūs
The Kanīsat Mār Quzmā wa-Damiyānūs (الْكَنِيسَةُ مَارِ قُزْمَا وَدَمِيَانُوسَ; Church of St. Cosmas and Damian; in Greek Ναός Αγίων Κοσμά και Δαμιανού) was a Antiochan Greek Orthodox church.1 Edward Lewes Cutts, Christians Under the Crescent in Asia. (London, New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Pott, Young, 1877), 101, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006017649; Max van Berchem, Gertrude Lowthian Bell, and Josef Strzygowski, Amida (Heidelberg : Winter, 1910), 167, http://archive.org/details/amidamateriauxp00berc; Gabriyel Akyüz, Diyarbakır’daki Meryem Ana Kilisesi’nin tarihçesi : M.S. 3. Yüzyıl = Makhtvāyūt zavne d-ʻedtā d-Yaldat ilaha Maryam d-mdīnat ʻAmīd, dura talītayā (Mardin : G. Akyüz, 1999), 24, http://archive.org/details/diyarbakrdakimer0000gabr. It is estimated to have been originally built around 330 AD, was destroyed in 1212, and was renovated between the 1683-1689 and in 1839.2 Yusuf Kenan Haspolat, “Diyarbakır Kiliseleri,” 2015, 126, https://silo.tips/download/dyarbakir-klseler-profdryusuf-kenan-haspolat. Berchem provides a description of the architecture and layout.3 Berchem, Bell, and Strzygowski, Amida, 171. In 1842, it is reported by Fletcher that the congregation was only 10 or 12, while the rest had changed their allegiance to Rome, probably under the rival Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church.4 James Phillips Fletcher, Notes from Nineveh, and Travels in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Syria; (London, H. Colburn, 1850), 138, http://archive.org/details/39020001835316-notesfromnineve. By 1844, only 15 Antiochian Orthodox believers remained, while the other 50 families became Melkite Catholics, and the church was for a few years Melkite Catholic; by around 1847, the Antiochian Orthodox had reclaimed the church and many converted back.5 G. P. Badger, The Nestorians & Their Ritual, vol. 1, 1852, 41, http://archive.org/details/BadgerGPTheNestoriansTheirRitualsVol11852. The Melkite Catholics gave mass in Arabic, allowed the marriage of priests, and in numerous other ways differed from the Roman Catholics, however.6 David Fraser, The Short Cut of India: The Record of a Journey Along the Route of the Baghdad Railway (William Blackwood and Sons (London), 1909), 184, https://archive.org/details/shortcuttoindiar00frasrich. Even as early as 1798, the Greeks of the city spoke “Arabic, and very little Greek”7 Domenico Sestini, Voyage de Constantinople à Bassora en 1781, par le Tigre et l’Euphrate (Paris: Dupuis, 1798), 96, https://www.google.com/books?id=EBcRwQEACAAJ.
The possessed tombs of saints, including those of its namesakes, the physicians St. Cosmas and St. Damian.8 Badger, The Nestorians & Their Ritual, 1:41. Fletcher describes the tombs:
We found here the sepulchres of SS. Cosmas and Damianus, whose names are well known to the ecclesiastical anti quary, from their frequent recurrence in the earlier liturgies, and particularly in the canon of the Roman mass. . . . A marble slab covers the bodies of the saints, bearing on its surface a plain cross in bas relief. There was a kind of aperture near the edge of the tomb, through which it is said a miraculous oil oozes forth on the festival of the saints. This oil, which is supposed to issue from the bodies within, is highly esteemed as a remedy for all kinds of sickness; it is collected in bottles, and disposed of to the Greeks of the province, who have full faith in its virtue.9 Fletcher, Notes from Nineveh, and Travels in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Syria;, 136, 138.
The tombs also had a small hole in them and a metal pin with which a pilgrim could touch the relics of the saint and then touch the metal to himself in order to cure disease.10 Cutts, Christians Under the Crescent in Asia., 102.
It was destroyed in 1930.
Current location: Lala Bey Mahallesi, Ada/Pafta/Parsel: 229/14/5–12