Liberation Mosque

Holy Mother of God Armenian Church as depicted in a photograph in 1920.

Liberation Mosque (Turkish: Kurtuluş Camii), formerly the St Mary's Church Cathedral or Holy Mother of God Church (Armenian: Սուրբ Աստուածածին Եկեղեցի, Romanized as Surp Asdvazdadzin Egeghetsʿi), is located in the Tepebaşı district of Gaziantep in Turkey.^[1] It was built as an Armenian church, but, after the Armenian genocide, it was converted into a storage building and later, it was converted into a jail.^[1] Sarkis Balyan, the Ottoman-Armenian architect of Sultan Abdulhamid II, designed the church. Construction started in 1892, undertaken by the stonemason Sarkis Taşçıyan.^[2] The church was part of a complex which also contained a school and the administrative buildings of the dioceses of the kaza of Antep.^[3]

In 1915, almost all of the Armenians of Gaziantep were deported to Syrian desert during the genocide.^[4] The church stood empty until the 1920s, when it was used as a prison. It remained a prison into the 1970s^[5] until it was converted into a mosque in 1986.^[1] The top half of the bell tower was demolished, the remainder converted into a single-balcony minaret. The bell, which was cast in the 19th century in South America, was taken to Gaziantep Museum.^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey
• Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques
• Armenian architecture

References[]

Coordinates: 37°03′37″N 37°22′32″E / 37.06028°N 37.37556°E / 37.06028; 37.37556

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