Dayro d'Mor Shem'un - Arbo

Dayro d'Mor Shem'un

The Monastery of Mor Shemʿun in Arbo, is a Syriac Orthodox monastery located in the Tur Abdin region, one of three such monasteries dedicated to the saint in the vicinity of the renowned Mor Gabriel Monastery.

The history of this monastery is closely tied to the larger Mor Gabriel Monastery. In the 18th and 19th centuries, specifically between 1718 and 1838, priests who were forced to leave Mor Gabriel were relocated to an abandoned monastery in Arbo. They named it after one of their original monasteries, Mor Shemʿun. This suggests a practice in the region of establishing smaller satellite monasteries connected to a main institution.

The monastery and the nearby villages of Hbob and Arbo survived Timur’s invasion in 1401 but were subsequently destroyed by Malik al-Adel, the governor of Hisno d'keyfo, in 1403. Despite its destruction, the monastery's existence is seen as evidence of Arbo’s historical importance during the Late Antique period. 

The main church of the monastery features a typical monastic church plan. Architectural analysis by Wiessner and Sinclair identified two distinct construction phases. The walls that separate the apse and naos were built in a later phase, indicating a significant modification to the original structure.

Status: Abandoned in ruins