In the village, there are churches of Mor Dimet and Mor Eliyo.[9][10]
Etymology
The Syriac name of the village is derived from "beth" ("house" in Syriac) and "Kustan" ("Constantine" in Syriac), thus Beth Kustan translates to "house of Constantine".[9]
History
The Church of Mor Eliyo was constructed in 343 AD.[11] It has been suggested that the village was founded by a member of the Roman limitanei (frontier militia) named Constans in the 4th century AD.[12] It is believed that the army of the Roman EmperorConstantine the Great (r. 306–337) marched through Beth Kustan on several occasions.[13] Philoxenus Yeshu, metropolitan bishop of the Monastery of the Cross and Hah (r. 1368–1410), ordained by Ignatius Saba I, patriarch of Tur Abdin, was from Beth Kustan.[14] Dionysius Yuhanna of Qustan was metropolitan bishop of the Monastery of the Cross in 1519–1543.[15] Cyril Isaiah of Qustan was abbot of the Monastery of Mar Awgin and then metropolitan bishop of Nisibin in 1861–1865.[16]
In 1914, the village was inhabited by 500 Assyrians, according to the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation.[17] Amidst the Sayfo, Hajo, chief of the Kurtak clan, escorted the villagers to safety at Hah, where they stayed for seven years until they were able to return to Beth Kustan with the help of Çelebi Ağa of the Haverkan confederation.[18]
The village was officially named Alagöz in the 1930s as a result of the state's turkification policy.[19][20] The population was 666 in 1966.[5] There were 620 Turoyo-speaking Christians in 155 families at Beth Qustan in 1966.[5] Most of the village's population were forced to leave in the 1960s and 1970s due to the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and emigrated abroad to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland.[10][20][21] In 1993, it was alleged that seven villagers were detained and tortured by Turkish paramilitaries.[22] On 12 February 2015, Beth Kustan was restored as the official name of the village.[20]
Demography
The following is a list of the number of Assyrian families that have inhabited Beth Kustan per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World, as noted in the bibliography below.[23][b]
Timotheos Samuel Aktaş (b. 1945), Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Tur Abdin.[29]
References
Notes
^Alternatively transliterated as Bagssian, Bakisyan, Bakısyan, Baqisyan, Baqsyan, Bekusyone, Bekusyono, Bēth Qusṭān, Beth Qusyan, Bōqısyōno, or Boqusyono.[3] Also called Kustan or Qustan.[4]Nisba: Qusnōyo.[5]
^The size of a single family varies between five and ten persons.[23]
Takahashi, Hidemi (2011). "Also via Istanbul to New Haven- Mss. Yale Syriac 7-12". Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honour of Dimitri Gutas, ed. Felicitas Opwis, David Reisman. Brill. pp. 157–179.
