World churches get a door to the world from Hatay

In this time of political chaos in Turkey, I would like to share the following article with you.  I came across it this morning in a Turkish newspaper.  It caught my eye because of its simple beauty:  no politics, no fighting, no blaming.  No chaos.  It does, however, involve religion, but the article is not about religion. Behold:

Fittingly for the site of one of Christianity’s oldest churches, the southern province of Hatay is now exporting intricate church doors around the world thanks to the efforts of a local artisan, Ali Altun.

Though Altun, 55, has been interested in carving wood since childhood, his involvement in carving wooden doors for churches started later. . .

“I wanted to make figures for church doors in order to give life to wood and my designs were appreciated. Then I started working on apostle statues. After I made a few doors, my work began to draw interest and this intense interest led me to start making different designs. I made a door with the figure of St. Pierre for a [local] Orthodoxchurch,” Altun said. “While visiting the church, a team from the United States saw the door and liked it a lot. They asked me to make a door for the St. Andrea Church in southern California. I made the door for them, and then I made all the church’s doors.”  . . . 

Hatay is one of Turkey’s most religiously diverse provinces, with a population that includes Sunni Turks, Sunni Arabs, Arab Alevis (Alawites), Arabic-speaking GreekOrthodox, Armenians and Kurds. Hatay was an important center of early Christianity, with the name “Christian” first being applied to the followers of Jesus in Antioch, the modern-day Antakya, which is the seat of the Hatay province. Antakya’s Cave Church of St. Peter dates to the fourth-century A.D.

via World churches get a door to the world from Hatay – RELIGION.

You may click the above link to read the entire article.