Thirty years ago there were 50,000 Christians in South-Eastern Turkey speaking a dialect of Aramaic - the language of Christ. Now there are 2,500. Talking to one of them, the BBC’s Jeremy Bristow learned that instead of Three Kings, there might actually have been 12.
Fresh out of his farm clothes, Habib the mayor now sits at his table in a crisply ironed shirt. He’s a gentle, almost diffident man in his early 50s, but he can form his letters with a calm assurance. He’s the custodian of a dying language.
For 1,000 years, Aramaic was written and spoken right across Middle East. It was the language spoken by Jesus and his followers. The Jewish holy book, the Talmud, was written in Aramaic, and scholars say Arabic script is derived from it. But now, if Aramaic was an animal species, it would be declared critically endangered.
Habib, a Syriac Christian, is one of just 2,500 Syriacs who still live in this remote part of south-east Turkey. They call this region, their homeland, Tur Abdin. In Aramaic this means the Mount of the Servants of God.
Six-hundred years ago Hah was sacked by the armies of Timur the Lame, just one catastrophe in a long history of persecutions and acts of terror that religious minorities like the Syriacs endured in this part of the Middle East.
Habib’s family survived by holding out in their fortress-like farmhouse that still stands above the village.
Habib said his family, the Beth Henno, have been here since records began.
We walk down through the village, in the shadow of crumbling towers and gaping vaults, entering the courtyard of the Church of the Yoldath Aloho, the Mother of God. As I enter the cave I know I am standing in history.
The walls and niches are covered in a riot of carved decorations. It’s here that Habib and the villagers still come to chant the hymns of Saint Ephraim, as their ancestors have done since the Church was built, nearly 1,500 years ago.
They will be here at Christmas. Habib tells me a local legend. Just over 2,000 years ago an auspicious star appeared in the night sky. Twelve kings from the East gathered here at Hah. A select three went on to Bethlehem bearing gifts to greet the newborn Christ.
A grateful Mary, mother of God, gave them a piece of the baby’s swaddling clothes. When the three kings returned to Hah, the holy baby-wrap turned to gold. Awed by this miracle, the Kings founded this church.
As we walk back in to the courtyard, I hear the village children reciting, Aramaic in class.
I ask Habib, what the future is for the Syriac community here in Tur Abdin, the Mount of the worshipers of God. “We won’t give up,’’ he said. “But I fear, in the end, we are too few.”
-bbc.com