A Christian Shrine in a Muslim Land

"CASUAL readers of Greek mythology are often surprised to learn that if you want to visit what is left of Troy, you have to travel to Turkey. And those familiar with Christianity might also be surprised to learn that millions of people believe that in her final years the Virgin Mary also found her home in Turkey, a couple of hundred miles south of Troy, near the ancient city of Ephesus."

"A startlingly large number of those who visit are Muslims who believe that Mary — or Meryem, as she is known in the Koran — was a holy figure, not the mother of God, but a woman of remarkable virtue. Brother Tarcy Mathias, the Capuchin monk who is the Roman Catholic Church’s overseer of the site, says that the Koran mentions Mary more than 30 times. Brother Mathias is a soft-spoken Indian Catholic, with deep-set eyes and a somewhat melancholy manner. He looks watchful, measured, reminiscent of someone whose words have been used against him.

“In Chapter 3, verse 37,” he tells me, “the Koran says, ‘Mary, God has chosen thee, and purified thee. He has chosen thee above all women.’”
A Christian Shrine in a Muslim Land - New York Times