Surp Giragos Armenian Church
Diyarbakır · Armenian Apostolic
- Locality
- Diyarbakır
- Tradition
- Armenian Apostolic
- Type of place
- CHURCH BUILDING
- Coordinates
- 37.91085° N, 40.23879° E
Identity checked:
History: Surp Giragos Armenian Church
Surp Giragos, the Church of Saint Cyricus, in the walled Sur district of Diyarbakır, is described as the largest Armenian church in the Middle East. A church is recorded here in 1515–1518; after a fire in 1880 it was rebuilt in 1883. After the 1915 genocide it served as a barracks, a warehouse and a textile factory, and no official service was held until 2011, when a largely Armenian-funded restoration made it the first church in Türkiye revived as a permanent place of worship. Expropriated in 2016, it reopened in May 2022 after renovation.
An interesting detail
Its hall of twenty arches on sixteen monolithic columns could hold about 3,000 worshippers, and the church has seven altars: five on the ground floor and two in the upper gallery.