Amida
Amida
(DIARBEKIR.)
An Armenian Rite diocese located in Mesopotamia, Asiatic Turkey.- The foundation of the city of Amida has been wrongly attributed to Tigranes I, or Tigranes III (the Great), Kings of Armenia: it has been identified with either Tigranocerte or Dikranagherd. It got from the Greeks and the Romans the name of Amida, and is known in Turkish as Kara-Amid, i.e. “Amid the Black,” but goes more generally by its Arabic name Diarbekir (Land of the Virgin). The town rises on the left bank of the Tigris, about 75 miles from its source and about 900 miles from the mouth of that river. An interior citadel overlooks the double enclosure of the town with its seventy-two towers, and dates back undoubtedly to the Armenian epoch; it was repaired by Valens (A.D. 364-378) and was finished by Anastasius I (491-518). In this citadel is the old Byzantine church of St. John, now used for Mussulman worship, and known as Olou Djami, the Long Mosque. In 638, Amida was taken by the Arabs who called it Diarbekir. Later on it passed under the Persian domination. Since 1514 it belongs to the Ottoman empire and is the chief city of the vilayet of the same name. It has about 35,000 inhabitants, of whom are 20,000 are Mussulmans (Arabians, Turks, Kurds, etc.), 2,300 Catholics (Chaldeans, Armenians, Syrians, Melchites, Latins), 8,500 Gregorian Armenians, 900 Protestant Armenians, 950 Jacobite Syrians, 900 Orthodox Greeks, and 300 Jews. Diarbekir possesses an Armenian Catholic bishop, a Syrian Catholic bishop, a Syrian Jacobite bishop, a Chaldean Catholic archbishop, and a Greek Orthodox metropolitan under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch. The Latin Mission of Diarbekir, founded by Père Jean-Babtiste de Saint Aignan (1667), remained in the hands of the French Capuchins during nearly a century and a half. Its founder converted (1671) the Nestorian Bishop Joseph, with whom Innocent XI inaugurated (1681) the series of the Chaldean Catholic patriarchs. The mission suffered much during the French Revolution. In 1803, at the death of the last French Capuchin, it was entrusted to Italian religious. In 1841, Spanish missionaries took charge of it, but eventually it passed again into the hands of Italian missionaries. The Capuchin Fathers direct a school for boys. Near them the Franciscan nuns of Lons-le-Saunier have opened (since 1882) a school for girls. An American Protestant mission, working especially among the Armenians, keeps up three schools: two for boys and one for girls. Besides these foreign establishments Diarbekir possesses fifty-four others. The Turks have 4 medresses, 3 secondary and 33 elementary schools, one of which is for girls. The Gregorian Armenians have 5 elementary schools, one of which is for girls. The Catholic Armenians have an elementary school for boys, the Catholic Chaldeans 3 elementary schools, one of which is for girls. The Catholic Syrians have an elementary school for boys, and the Israelites an elementary school for girls.
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S. PÉTRIDÈS Transcribed by Abdulmesih BarAbrahem Dedicated to Naum Faiq (1868-1930) from Diarbekir
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Amida
in Japanese mythology, is the supreme god, sole sovereign in the regions of bliss, the father and protector of all spirits, without beginning and without end. He created the universe, rules the world, was in bodily form on the earth for more than a thousand years, performed the most stupendous miracles, and taught and converted men. There is a contradiction, however, in this, that he thereupon died voluntarily, and thus was raised to the godhead, since which time he stands as a mediator between God and men. Through him alone, and by his mediation only, can men be saved. At death they are placed for a time in hell, from which place they can be liberated by the priests upon making presents to the temple; after which liberation they again return to this earth. Amida has seven heads, which are meant to point to his seven thousand years: rule of the world. He sits riding on a seven- headed horse.