In a bid to help residents reconnect with their shattered city, architect Buse Ceren Gül has taken on the mission of rebuilding the 166-year-old St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in the southern province of Hatay’s Antakya, devastated by the catastrophic Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, and a 7.5 aftershock hours later, were among Türkiye’s worst natural disasters.
In Antakya, the quakes destroyed much of the historical town center.
“The old city is central to the earliest memories of anyone who grew up here,” the 34-year-old Gül told The Associated Press, strolling around St. Paul’s Church.
An estimated 10,000 Christians lived in Hatay before the earthquake, a tiny part of the overall population but one of the largest Christian concentrations in Türkiye.
Antakya was one of the hardest-hit towns, with the destruction threatening to erase one of its oldest streets, Saray Avenue.
The street is home to the Greek Orthodox St. Paul’s Church, which belongs to an Arabic-speaking community.
The neighborhood, like others in Antakya, has become “unrecognizable to its residents,” said Gül, who belongs to the Alevi Muslim community. “But raising the old city on its feet might prove that Antakya’s roots can be preserved once again.”
Gül was studying and working on the St. Paul’s Church’s renovation since before the earthquakes. Of the 293 cultural heritage sites damaged in the province, the church is among the few that already had approved architectural drawings, which Gül was drafting.
“When I was working on those plans, one of my mentors told me to draw in a way that the church can get rebuilt if it gets demolished,” Gül said. “I never thought this grand structure could actually be obliterated, but I drafted a point-by-point plan.”
After saving the rebuilding plans from the ruins of her office right after the quakes, Gül secured the support of the World Monuments Fund, a nonprofit that works to preserve endangered cultural heritage.
With the fund’s technical and financial contributions, Gül’s team cleared tons of rubble and set aside the stones they recovered intact.
The team continues project planning and technical assessments for the reconstruction stage, though the work on site has stalled until more funding arrives.
