Abuna Fikri Gabriel is a priest in the Syriac Orthodox Church in Liège, a Doctor of Theology, and the grandson of a survivor of the Seyfo—the genocide of the Assyrians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915. For years, he traveled to Rome to research the Vatican’s secret archives. The result is a two-volume work that has now taken another historic step: it has been translated into Turkish and is being published by YAY.
In the first part, *Seyfo – The Genocide of the Syriacs (1840–1915)*, Gabriel paints a systematic picture of how the Young Turks planned and carried out the extermination of the Assyrians—region by region, from Turabdin to Hakkâri.
The second part draws on Vatican diplomatic reports and secret archival documents to shed light on the Holy See’s role during the years of the genocide—what Pope Benedict XV and his envoys did, and what options were available to a neutral party in the midst of an ongoing war.
The second part has now been translated into Turkish and published in two volumes.
The fact that these works are now available in Turkish marks a significant milestone. Gabriel himself describes the translation as an opportunity to “reach new readers and share these stories across language barriers.”
The Turkish edition (consisting of two volumes) is available for purchase here, among other places.
