The Turkish Ministry of Defense recently announced that its armed forces carried out maintenance work on the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mar Tuma (St. Thomas) in the center of Ras al-Ain in northern Syria.

The ministry added in the July 14 statement that the Turkish armed forces have paid great attention to the restoration and maintenance of religious buildings in the Operation Peace Spring area.

Abdullah Arin, the governor of Turkey’s southeastern city of Urfa, visited Ras al-Ain on June 11. Accompanied by the head of the Ras al-Ain local council, Mohammed Ali al-Hosho, Arin visited the Syriac Orthodox Church and met with Syriac Christians before heading to the city’s cultural center, where training and educational courses have been offered to locals since last year.

Hosho told Al-Monitor, “The maintenance and restoration works carried out by the local council with the support of the Turkish Ministry of Defense at the Church of Mar Tuma in Ras al-Ain have been completed. These works included repairing the internal electricity grid, the lighting system and the table for candle lighting. The church was provided with a generator, furniture, holy books and church supplies that were lost. We have also restored the damaged walls of the church. In the next stage, the walls will be repainted. All of these works were done upon the direct request of the Turkish government. And for the first time since the Syrian National Army [affiliated with the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army] took control of the area as part of Operation Peace Spring, the Christians in the Syrian city of Ras al-Ain peacefully celebrated Christmas in the Syriac Orthodox Church.”