Academics from Turkey visited museums, private collectors and universities in Trabzon, Istanbul, Greece, Ireland, Great Britain, and the US to collect information on objects that belonged to the Panagia Sumela Monastery, greekreporter.com notes.
Based on an article by Milliyet, the scholars recorded a number of metal objects, manuscripts, and garments from the Byzantine period that they believe belong to the historic Panagia Sumela Monastery.
Among the objects, are items attributed to Alexios III the Great Komninos, who served as an Emperor of Trebizond from 1349 until his death. The publication claims that many of the invaluable relics were removed and exiled from the monastery by the Americans during a NATO mission in the area in the 1950s.
According to Milliyet, the list of items that have been compiled by the scholars has been given to the Turkish National Assembly by the country’s Culture Minister Nuri Ersoy.
In a letter to parliament, the minister points out that Sumela “is one of the most important monasteries in Anatolia” and that they are determined to bring back the 77 items recorded on the list.
The Turkish minister of culture insisted that all necessary steps will be taken for the return of the heirlooms that belong to Turkish cultural heritage and were taken abroad illegally. In recent years, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government has been keen to make use of the historic monastery, which is undergoing extensive restoration work.
The Monastery of Panagia of Sumela, or Monastery of Sumela, is a famous Christian Orthodox monastery near Trabzon and a symbol of 16 centuries of Pontic Hellenism.
According to tradition, in 386 the Athenian monks Varnavas and Sophronius were led to the inaccessible mountain peaks of Pontus after the revelation of the Virgin Mary, in order to establish her solitary abode. There, in the cave of the steep lower slope of the mountain, at an altitude of 1063 meters, the sacred icon of the Virgin Mary of Athiniotissa was brought by angels, as depicted by the Evangelist Luke.
In 1922 the Turks totally destroyed the monastery. After robbing all the precious objects from the convent, they then set it on fire.
Prior to the enforced exodus in 1923, the monks hid the icon of the Virgin Mary, the gospel of St. Christopher and the cross of Trabzon emperor Manuel Komninos in the chapel of St. Barbara.
In June 2010, the Turkish State allowed the Ecumenical Patriarchate to hold a divine liturgy to mark the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, 2010, in the Panagia Sumela Monastery. It was the first time in 88 years that the monastery was reopened as a church, after having been converted into a museum in recent years.
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