Merki is an Assyrian village located in Hamadaniya District of

Nineveh Governorate Nineveh Governorate (; , ) is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of a ...

, located below The

Mar Mattai Monastery Dayro d-Mor Mattai (; ; ''The Monastery of St. Matthew'' or ''Dayro d-Mor Mattai'') is a Syriac Orthodox Church monastery on Mount Alfaf in northern Iraq. Located 20 kilometers northeast of the city of Mosul, it is recognized as one of the oldest ...

Mount Alfaf Mount Alfaf (, ṭūrāʾ Alfaf), also known as Mount Maqlub (جبل مقلوب in Arabic), is a mountain in the Nineveh Plains region in northern Iraq. The mountain lies 30 km to the northeast of Mosul and some 15 km from Bartella. The ...

. The village was founded by

Syriac Orthodox Christian The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination, denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The ch ...

refugees from

Tikrit Tikrit ( ) is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000. Originally created as a f ...

in 1089, who fled to the

, establishing this village in the valley below the monastery. The village and

Nineveh Plains Nineveh Plains (, Modern ; ; ) is a region in Nineveh Governorate in Iraq. Located to the north and east of the city Mosul, it is the only Christian-majority region in Iraq and have been a gathering point for Iraqi Christians since 2003. Control o ...

region were later bolstered by other Syriac refugees from Tikrit due to

Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...

raids in 1295 and

Timur Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1320s17/18 February 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeat ...

's genocide of Christians in the early 1400s. Merki is a prosperous agricultural village, with the cultivation of olives being their specialty. The village has several hundred houses, and a large historic church which was recently restored. In 2015, Christian monks remained at the monastery despite a surge in

ISIL The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signif ...

activity in the area surrounding the Nineveh Plains.

Sources

Assyrian communities in Iraq Populated places in Nineveh Governorate {{Iraq-geo-stub

See also

Sources