Cizre

Cizre (pronounced [dʒizˈɾe]; Kurdish: Cizîr‎ or Cizîra Botan, Arabic: جزيرة ابن عمر‎ Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, Syriac: ܓܙܝܪܐ‎ Gzirā or Gziro) is a town and district of Şırnak Province in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, on the border with Syria, just to the northwest of the Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi tripoint.

It is populated by a majority of Kurds in addition to Assyrian/Syriac people and other minorities. It is surrounded by the Tigris on the north, east and south; this gives it its name, which means "island" in Arabic (جزيرة, jazīra).

Climate

Cizre has a mediterranean climate (Csa) with wet, mild, rarely snowy winters and dry, extremely hot summers. Daily summer temperatures of 113 °F (45 °C) or higher are common, as well as below freezing temperatures in the winter.

History

Classic era and Middle Ages

Cizre is historical Gazarta and Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar (Arabic: جزيرة ابن عمر‎), an important town during the Abbasid period and the Crusades as a gateway connecting Upper Mesopotamia to Armenia.

Gazarta (Chaldean Diocese)

The Chaldean diocese of Gazarta, named for the town of Jezira (modern Cizre), known in Syriac as Gazarta d'Beth Zabdai, was established on a stable basis in the early nineteenth century. Many of the Assyrians of the Gazarta region, including the bishop of Gazarta Pilipus Yaqub Orahim, were killed during the Assyrian Genocide during 1914-1918, and the diocese lapsed after the First World War.

Chaldean bishops of Gazarta

The first nineteenth-century bishop of Gazarta was Giwargis Peter di Natale, who was consecrated for Gazarta in 1833 by the patriarch Yohannan VIII Hormizd and transferred to the diocese of ʿAmadiya in 1842.

The patriarch Nicholas I Zayʿa appointed Basil Asmar, previously administrator of the diocese of Amid, to the diocese of Gazarta in 1842. Basil was metropolitan of Gazarta for nine years, and Badger noted in 1850 that 'he seldom resides at Jezeerah'. He retired due to old age and ill health in 1851.

The patriarch Joseph VI Audo sent the priest ʿAbdishoʿ Dosho (later metropolitan of ʿAmadiya) to Gazarta in his place for a year, and appointed Jerome Paul Hindi metropolitan of Gazarta in 1852. Hindi was metropolitan of Gazarta until 1873, and was succeeded by Eliya Peter ʿAbulyonan (1874–8), who became patriarch in 1879 after Audo's death.