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Independence Mosque
Liberation Mosque, formerly the St. Mary’s Cathedral or Holy Mother of God Church, is located in the Tepebaşı district of Gaziantep in Turkey. It was built as an Armenian church, but, after the Armenian genocide, it was converted into a storage building and later, it was converted into a jail. Sarkis Balyan, the Ottoman-Armenian architect of Sultan Abdulhamid II, designed the church. Construction started in 1892, undertaken by the stonemason Sarkis Taşçıyan. The church was part of a complex which also contained a school and the administrative buildings of the dioceses of the kaza of Antep. In 1915, almost all of the Armenians of Gaziantep were deported to Syrian desert during the genocide. The church stood empty until the 1920s, when it was used as a prison. It remained a prison into the 1970s until it was converted into a mosque in 1986. The top half of the bell tower was demolished, the remainder converted into a single-balcony minaret. The bell, which was cast in the 19th century in South America, was taken to Gaziantep Museum.
Address: Tepebaşı, Cami Sk. No:10, 27010 Şahinbey/Gaziantep
