Ayrancı (; ; ) is a village in the Beşiri District of Batman Province in Turkey. The village is populated by Kurds of the Sinikan tribe and had a population of 351 in 2021.
History The Monastery of Mor Quryaqos (today called Ayrancı) was established in the 5th century. It is first attested in 1415 in which year Basilius, metropolitan of Zarjal, was ordained by Patriarch Yeshu’ I of Tur Abdin. The monastery served as the episcopal seat of the Syriac Orthodox diocese of Zarjal from the beginning of the 15th century until the beginning of the 20th century. It was renovated in 1481, at which time the monastery had 100 monks, as per a colophon written there in 1483. According to colophons dated to 1486 and 1488, there were many monks from Tur Abdin at the monastery.
Patriarch Ignatius Shukrallah II aided Basilius Gurgis of Aleppo, metropolitan of Diyarbakr, in construction at the monastery in 1723. Ignatius Shukrallah II obtained a certificate of investiture from Sultan Ahmed III dated 6 Rabi’ al-Akhir 1135 AH/1723 AD addressed to the Muslim judge of Hisn Kipha so to exempt the monastery from fees and tithes. The portico in the monastery was added in 1855. Elias (later Patriarch Ignatius Elias III) was appointed as head of the monastery in 1895. Elias provided refuge to approximately 7000 Armenians at the monastery amidst the massacres in the Diyarbekir Vilayet. In 1909, an additional structure was added to the monastery according to a Garshuni inscription on the portal on the south side of the monastery. The monastery was abandoned in the early 1940s. It was restored in 2020–2025. References Notes
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