The Church of the Virgin Mary — Meryem Ana Kilisesi, known also as the Mor Yakup church — stands in the Sur district of Diyarbakır and belongs to the Syriac Orthodox. It is believed to have been built in the third century, and has burned, been thrown down and been repaired many times since.
The complex is entered through an outer gate into the main courtyard, which has a small ornamental pool; the church stands on its east side and lodgings on the north and south, and a door in the south-eastern corner leads into a second courtyard kept as the church garden. Fourteen inscriptions survive on the buildings, all of them records of repairs and additions; the oldest, of 1533, notes a renewal. One doorway is dated to the late Roman period, and the church took its present form in a restoration of 2004–2005.
The naos is close to square, 11.80 by 11.64 metres, under a brick dome 10.23 metres across that rests on eight basalt piers; brick was chosen to keep the weight down, and the dome is built with a double shell. The walls are chiefly basalt, the dark stone of the region, set off with limestone, marble and courses of brick in the Early Byzantine manner. At the entrance four round marble columns carry basalt barrel vaults, and the marble pieces that divide the apse from the naos began life as sixth-century window mullions, reused here.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Diyarbakır as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 1.8 °C in January to 31 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (70 mm) and lightest in August (1 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
