Sankt Petrus och Paulus kyrka, Syriac Orthodox church in Hallunda, Botkyrka Municipality, Sweden.
Sankt Petrus och Paulus kyrka is a Syriac Orthodox church in Hallunda, its facades laid in red and yellow brick of varying shades. The design draws on early Christian churches such as those in Tur Abdin, southeastern Turkey: a single-nave hall running east-west, crowned by a golden onion dome and flanked by two square bell towers with domes. A banquet hall, meeting rooms, library, offices and mother-tongue classrooms adjoin the nave.
The church was consecrated in 2004, designed by architect Agne Ideborg according to the parish's wishes and financed by members in Sweden and abroad. It is one of six Syriac Orthodox churches in Sweden. On 26 April 2015 it inaugurated Sweden's first memorial to the Seyfo genocide of 1915, an event broadcast live to over 80 countries.
The walls carry icons painted by Swedish Syriac Orthodox artists, while the furnishings come from several countries: brass chandeliers from Greece, pews from Turkey, velvet curtains hand-sewn in India, and the reading stand and baptismal font from Syria. The marble altars were made by the Bulgarian artist Christo.
The church stands by the Hallunda traffic interchange on the E4, about a hundred metres from the Romanesque Botkyrka kyrka from the 1100s, so the two can be visited on foot in one stop. The entrance faces the road side; the parish rooms, library and offices open off the church hall.
The Seyfo monument was inaugurated on 26 April 2015 in a ceremony attended by Sweden's energy minister Ibrahim Baylan, the ambassadors of Serbia and Syria, and Bishop Anders Arborelius. The event was broadcast live to more than 80 countries by the Suryoyo Sat channel. Banners reading that condemning the earlier crime might have prevented the later one led the Islamic Cultural Association in Bredäng to report the church to police and demand one million kronor in damages.
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