Dayro d'Mor Mattai 

Dayro d'Mor Mattai

St. Matthew Monastery, a large monastery, perched on Mount Alfaf (the thousands) about 20 miles from Mosul, Iraq, stands as one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, with its origins dating back to 363 AD. Founded by Mar Mattai (Saint Matthew) who fled Roman persecution, the monastery quickly became a significant spiritual and intellectual center for the Syriac Orthodox Church. Legend intertwines its establishment with the story of Prince Behnam and his sister Sarah, whom Mar Mattai converted and healed, leading to the conversion of their father, King Sennacherib, who is said to have commissioned the monastery's construction as an act of atonement. Over the centuries, the monastery flourished, and teaching begin in it before the third decade of the seventh century and remained until the end of the thirteenth century and it was housing great number of  monks and a renowned library of Syriac Christian manuscripts, solidifying its place as a beacon of Christianity in Mesopotamia. It became a metropolitan see and still holds that honor today. Throughout its long history, St. Matthew Monastery has faced numerous challenges, including attacks and looting, particularly by Kurdish forces in the 12th and 14th centuries, which resulted in the loss of many invaluable manuscripts. Despite these adversities, the monastery endured, serving not only as a place of worship and learning but also as a refuge for persecuted Christians

It suffered many changes and calamities until it was renovated in 1845. It produced two Patriarchs, six Maphrians and thirty bishops. The manuscripts at the library were increased in the seventh century, particularly the valuable ones which gained fame around the year 800. One of these manuscripts contained the Jacob of Edessa's Hexameron, copied in 822, now extant at the Chaldean library in Mosul, transferred from the library at Diyarbakir. In 1298, this library contained the complete writings of Bar Hebraeus, as is mentioned in the Berlin MS. 326. But it was pillaged by the Kurds in the middle of the fourteenth century. Only a portion of it remained in the middle of the sixteenth century and its contents were again scattered in 1845; after that date it possessed only about sixty manuscripts.