Sharing a religious icon

EPHESUS, Turkey — "The angels said, ‘Oh Mary! God has chosen you and purified you, chosen you above the women of all nations.’ "

You will not find this passage in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

It comes from the Koran.

The significance of Mary for Christians is well-known. But Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam, and the Koran makes seven mentions of his mother. While the three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity, Islam — share common origins, centuries of conflict over the Holy Land have made their differences seem irreconcilable and their commonalities seem less relevant.

The House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus along the western coast of Turkey, though, provides a surprising lesson in how faiths elsewhere in conflict can share a holy site without incident.

The humble stone house is supposedly the site of Mary’s last days, although the evidence leaves a lot to, well, faith. According to the Gospel, Jesus instructed John the Evangelist — who is known to have later lived in Ephesus — to make Mary his companion. In the early 19th century, a German nun had a series of visions that included Mary’s final days. Decades after the death of visionary Sister Ann Catherine Emmerich, a house matching her visions was discovered on a hillside near Ephesus, also the ancient site of the famed Celcius Library.

The house has hosted multiple papal visits, but a lack of concrete evidence has prevented the Vatican from officially recognizing it as the site of Mary’s final days. A site outside Jerusalem holds a rival claim to Mary’s final home.

The uncertainty surrounding the house’s authenticity has not deterred Muslim or Christian pilgrims, who shell out a few Turkish liras to access it. They file silently through the structure’s two small, dimly lit rooms where a century’s worth of lavish papal gifts are on display. Outside, Turkish women in headscarves light candles of reverence for Mary — a novel sight to my Western eyes.

Both Turks and light-skinned foreigners write their wishes on a prayer wall and collect holy water from the spring running under the house, which — big surprise — is purported to have miraculous healing powers. Nearby a few stalls do a brisk business in religious paraphernalia.

No one shouts, or waves their hands about or otherwise attempts to call attention to this scene of Muslims and Christians worshiping side-by-side and for the same reason. They are all rather nonchalant about it.

Turkey’s unique culture likely deserves much of the credit for the lack of antagonism at the site. It is the most secular Muslim country, a legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern nation of Turkey upon the remnants of the once-massive Ottoman Empire. And while 99 percent of the population follows Islam, levels of devotion span the entire spectrum.

As the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, I figured I was 0-for-2 in a Muslim country, but in Turkey the issue was nonexistent for me. Secularist and Islamist forces continue to vie for influence in Turkish society, but the conflict does not seem to seep into everyday life.

At the Ottoman Topkapi Palace on the Bosphorous, four women in black burqas could be seen crowding just as eagerly around the rod of Moses and the skull of Saint John as a footprint of Mohammed.

On the streets of Istanbul, women in Islamic dress interact fluidly with other Turks and foreigners in secular dress.

At Ephesus, as I stood admiring the exterior of Mary’s house, a Turkish man motioned for me to take a picture of him with his wife and young daughter. To me, the most noteworthy part of the interaction at the time was the man’s camera: it used film. I counted down from three with my fingers and snapped the photo.

As I handed the man back his camera with one hand, I gave a thumbs up with the other. He flashed me a peace sign in return.

This report comes from a journalist in our Student Correspondent Corps, a GlobalPost project training the next generation of foreign correspondents who study abroad.