There was a church of Mor Dodo which purported to possess relics of him.[7]
History
Isfes (today called Yarbaşı) is identified with Hiaspis mentioned by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus in Res gestae in the 4th century AD along the frontier with the Sasanian Empire.[8] It was noted as the location of the defection of the protector domesticus Antoninus to the Sasanian Empire.[9] The Syriac OrthodoxmaphrianBasil Solomon took refuge at Isfes after having fled Mosul in 1514 and remained there until his death in 1518.[10] An attack by Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz on Isfes resulted in the death of 80 men, including a priest and a notable, and the enslavement of a number of women and children in early 1834.[11] The village was part of the Syriac Orthodox diocese of Cizre in c. 1870.[12]
By the Sayfo, Isfes was inhabited by 300 Assyrian families and had five priests.[13] On 6 June 1915, the village withstood an attack by the Kurdish Ömerkan, ‘Alikan, and Dörekan tribes and the villagers were fired upon by an Al-Khamsin militia detachment that had arrived and promised to protect them.[13] The village's notables were killed.[14] After three days of fighting, the villagers were able to flee to Azakh after the priest ‘Abdallahad Jebbo managed to bribe the detachment commander Ilyas Chelebi and Isfes was subsequently looted and burned as they fled.[15]
In 1926, the village was disarmed under pressure from the Turkish government and then plundered whilst the men were killed in forced deportations to Diyarbakir and Cizre and the women and children were left at the mercy of the Turkish soldiers.[16] The Assyrian population of Isfes began to emigrate to Al-Malikiyah in Syria from 1960 onwards and eventually the last Assyrian family left in 1980.[17] The church of Mor Dodo was converted into a house and a barn.[18]
References
Notes
^Alternatively transliterated as Espes, Esfes, Esfess, Hespest, Hespis, Hespist, or Isfis.[4]
