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In the church crypt lies the tomb of Jacob of Nisibis, from whom comes the term Jacobite. Representing Syriac Christianity, he attended the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325. Jacob was the teacher of the great poet, Ephrem the Syrian, whom John Wesley called "that man of the broken heart."

This ancient church, once so important in Christian History, now sits alone in an entirely Muslim culture. I turned my gaze from the sarcophagus in the crypt to the richly decorated arches, then to the geometric design on the lectern. Marshall, a Senior Fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, stood with me by the silent crypt of this deserted church dating back to a.d. 359.

Suddenly, our driver broke into song, an ancient hymn of the church. His voice was strong and sure, filling the empty stones with a flood of music, without being prompted.

We asked him what the words meant. He said the lyrics came from the great Ephrem:

Listen, my chicks have flown,
left their nest, alarmed
By the eagle. Look,
where they hide in dread!
Bring them back in peace!

This church had nurtured Ephrem, the greatest of the Syriac theologians. After being expelled from Nisibis, he spent the last 10 years of his life (363-73) in exile in Edessa (Urfa).

The Nisibis church and others in the area deserve to be introduced to the rest of the world. Yet they remain virtually inaccessible. Christians especially should have the opportunity to understand the area's history, poetry, liturgy, and the early growth of monasticism here.

An armed group, the Hezbollah, still operates in the area. This is not exactly the same Hezbollah that operates in the Middle East but is related to them. It has frequently attacked Christian villages in these areas and sought to drive them out. There may be only a few thousand Christians left in southeastern Turkey.

This community is coming to a decisive moment: either great courage or complete collapse. Some sense of solidarity with the outside Christian world would help. Their plight cries out for understanding by art historians, museum curators, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as concerned laypeople.

If Christians abroad began to take an active interest in them, either through business enterprise or by visiting, empathizing, and getting to know them personally, the balance could shift. The displaced Christians of Upper Mesopotamia who are now in Europe might begin to come back. That could encourage economic development.

The aggressive campaigns of the ministry of tourism notwithstanding, the Turkish government has grossly neglected these ancient Christian sites. The tourist literature nowhere mentions them. Instead, the government has supervised the demise of numerous Christian villages or passively watched them deteriorate.

Yet encouraging the government to develop area tourism would likely be more persuasive than moral arguments for freedom of religion. Some churches here have remained in use largely without interruption since the fourth century. As Freedom House's Marshall remarked, this whole area is a museum—an ancient Christian museum.

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January 2003, Vol. 47, No. 1