ASIA/TURKEY – Farewell Antioch. Father Bertogli leaves his “Domus Ecclesiae” after 35 years of missionary work

ASIA/TURKEY – Farewell Antioch. Father Bertogli leaves his “Domus Ecclesiae” after 35 years of missionary work

by Gianni Valente
Antakya (Agenzia Fides) – With the arrival of the month of November, the time for farewells has also arrived. Father Domenico Bertogli, 86, Capuchin of Modena, left the parish of Saints Peter and Paul in Antakya, the ancient Antioch on the Orontes, the one he inaugurated and served with apostolic passion, according to the model of the “Domus Ecclesiae” of the first Christians. Even on the last day, the hugs, tears and laughter of Christians and Muslims, the inhabitants of the Turkish city and pilgrims from afar, lifelong friends and people he had just met, gathered around from him.
Father Dominic had resigned as parish priest in May, “because of my age”. He will remain in Turkey, supporting the pastoral work of St Stephen’s Catholic Church in Yeşilköy, 20 kilometers from the heart of Istanbul. At the end of October, he celebrated a mass to commemorate his 56 years of mission in Turkey (before Antioch, he was in Izmir) and his 60 years of priesthood. In this mass, and also in a letter distributed a few days earlier, he bade farewell to the Christians of Antioch with words full of hope and sober emotion. He told everyone that his heart remained in this city, where he had sought for so many years to serve the baptized in their journey of faith. “For the cases I have succeeded, writes Father Domenico, we thank the Lord. And when I have not done well, I ask for forgiveness and understanding”. In the letter, Father Bertogli also thanked his closest collaborators one by one (“Let’s not be sad. Take heart, we are all on the way to the risen Lord”). “In my life, added Father Domenico in a conversation with Agenzia Fides, I have always chosen the path of obedience, and to stay in the places and situations where I was told to go. This is what I was able to put on my side, and I hope that things will continue. Because then, in our obedience, it is the Lord who acts”.

The mission of Domenico Bertogli (and all the recent missionary adventure of the Capuchins of Emilia-Romagna in Anatolia) has been blessed by facts and encounters to be preserved with gratitude in the memory of the local Christian communities. A memory already charged with the suggestions which, for two thousand years, surround for every Christian soul the places and events linked to the first apostolic preaching.
Father Dominique, who arrived in Antakya at the end of the 1980s, began at that time to renovate, piece by piece, two old dilapidated houses in the old Jewish quarter, where the dwellings of the first Christians of the city were also probably concentrated. . After completing the work, he had engraved the inscription Türk Katolik Kilisesi, (Turkish Catholic Church) on the stone above the door, to let everyone know that even in modern Turkey, Christianity is not a foreign faith. The Alawite Muslim architect Selahattin Altinözü renovated the house-church by rediscovering the oriental and arabesque style of the old Antiochian residences: arcades and columns, windows and wells in ornate stone, terraces with lancets. Thus, over the years, the Domus ecclesia of Father Dominic has also become an attraction of the city, a refreshing stopover for groups of pilgrims or solitary travelers. Even the Muslim and Jewish family clans of the city have repeatedly asked to organize their celebrations in the cohort installed in the middle of the dwelling, under orange trees and fragrant grapefruit trees. Above all, a humble and tenacious fabric of Christian life has developed around the church, also blessed with the gift of unity among those who bear the name of Christ. In Antioch, Father Dominic and the priests of the Greek Orthodox Church always shared joys and difficulties, feast days and difficult times. In recent years, Orthodox Christians have also participated in catechesis in the parish, inspired by the experience of the Neo-catechumenal Way. And since 1988, with an authorization granted ad experimentum by the Holy See, the Catholics of Antioch have celebrated Easter on the day fixed by the Orthodox calendar. Thus, the discrepancy of dates in the celebrations of Easter, which throughout the Middle East is the most obvious and suffered sign of the lack of unity among Christians, has disappeared in this city.
For decades, Father Domenico has been telling the flow of daily life woven with small and big surprises in the Chronicles of Antioch, a kind of community newspaper published in recent years month by month and sent every year to the many friends scattered around the world. , to tell the daily journey of a group of Christian brothers and sisters who take life as it comes.

At Antioch on the Orontes, after the death and resurrection of Christ, the apostle Peter arrived and remained there a long time. This is why the city was Sedes Petri before Rome. In the epistle to the Galatians, Paul recounts his discussion with Peter (“When Cephas came to Antioch, I challenged him to his face, for he was manifestly in error”) on a question which had arisen precisely in Antioch. It so happened that Peter, initially a friend of the pagans of the city who had become Christians, had begun to avoid them, for fear of the Christians of Jewish origin who considered the observance of the Mosaic law a prerequisite for the salvation promised by the Christ. Then the question was discussed in Jerusalem by the apostles and elders assembled in the first council. The resulting apostolic letter is sent first to the community of Antioch, recalling that “no other obligation should be imposed on newly baptized pagans than these necessary things: to abstain from meat offered to idols, from blood, strangled animals and impudence”.
Father Dominic, in the long journey he lived with his friends in Antioch, was able to experience and witness several times to the same attractive freedom that touched the hearts of Peter and Paul. The chance to have come across a story where you can ask the Lord for anything, without having to make any sacrifices. (Agenzia Fides 10/11/2022)

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