Victims of Turkey’s devastating February 6, 2023, earthquakes were commemorated at the partially destroyed Antakya Greek Orthodox Church on Friday, marking the first religious service held at the site since the disaster, the Diken news website reported.
The church, located in Hatay’s central Antakya district, was severely damaged in the earthquakes, which killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and another 6,000 in neighboring Syria.
Large sections of the church’s walls collapsed, and the historic structure has remained largely unusable since the disaster.
The memorial service was led by priests Jan Dellüller and Dimitri Doğum and included prayers for those who lost their lives in the earthquakes. Some attendees were seen in tears during the ceremony.
Fadi Hurigil, chairman of the Antakya Greek Orthodox Church Foundation, said the community was determined to rebuild the church, which he described as a symbol of the city.
“The last holy service held here was on February 5, 2023, just one day before the earthquake,” Hurigil said. “Three years have passed, and today, for the first time, we are holding a memorial service in this space for those who attended that final service.”
He said the earthquake left deep scars on the community. “Every life we lost was a mother, a father, a child, a sibling, a friend or a neighbor. We cannot put our grief into words, but their memory will continue to live in our hearts,” he said.
The February 6 earthquakes, centered in Kahramanmaraş’s Pazarcık and Elbistan districts, measured 7.8 and 7.5 and were among the deadliest disasters in Turkey’s modern history. In Antakya, much of the historic city center was destroyed.
Before the earthquakes, an estimated 10,000 Christians lived in Hatay province, a small fraction of Turkey’s population but one of the country’s largest Christian communities outside İstanbul.
Doğum told Agence France-Presse in December that that the Christian community in Antakya has fallen from about 350 families to fewer than 90 since the earthquakes.
Framed by mountains stretching between the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey’s border with Syria, Antakya was shaped by Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Arab and Ottoman rule over more than two millennia.
The city was briefly placed under a French mandate before becoming part of modern Turkey in 1939.
Arabic-speaking Muslim and Christian communities long lived alongside Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks and Jews.
That multicultural life — described by some residents as the city’s “soul” — is now feared to be in peril following the earthquakes.