The Grand Edirne Synagogue (above) in northwestern Turkey will hold its first wedding ceremony in more than four decades later this month. It is expected to be a heartfelt moment for Rufat Mitrani, a patriarch of the one of the few Jewish families living in the border city of Edirne, who married his wife Sara before the Jewish temple was abandoned to disrepair. The wedding, scheduled for May 29, will offer Mitrani's daughter Güneş the chance to wed in the first ceremony since it reopened last year.Mitrani, 67, started handing out invitations and expects a large number of Turkish Jews and Jews from other countries to attend the event.Mitrani's ancestors in Edirne go as far back as five centuries when the city was a key city of the Ottoman Empire and a former Ottoman capital. Mitrani married at the synagogue, also known as Kal Kadoş ha Gadol, in the presence of roughly 100 Jews living in the city in 1975. Most of his wedding guests have left Edirne since then, but the city has seen a revival of Jewish attraction since the remarkable synagogue reopened. "The place of worship was heavily damaged over the years but has been restored in the past five years; thanks to the state-run Directorate of Foundations. The synagogue is an important landmark for Edirne and this is why I wanted my daughter's wedding to be held here," he said. He said he was honored to have the synagogue as a wedding venue."Jewish weddings must be held at synagogues, so, in the past, we used to travel to other cities where synagogues are available. Now, as the people of Edirne, we will host Jews from other cities for weddings," he said.The Grand Edirne Synagogue was built in 1905 upon orders from Sultan Abdülhamid II to replace 13 separate synagogues destroyed by a fire that devastated the city. The building was designed by French architect France Depre, and opened in 1907 to serve as a house of worship until 1983, by which time the city's Jewish community had dwindled to almost zero. The building was later transferred to Edirne's Trakya University for cultural use, but due to criticism, it was handed over to the General Directorate of Foundations in 1995. The synagogue's roof collapsed two years later.Through restoration, the synagogue's lead domes and splendid interior and Torah scrolls were restored to their former glory.The synagogue, features architectural characteristics of the Leopoldstadter Tempel, once the largest synagogue in Vienna. Edirne is believed to be the birthplace of the Maftirim repertoire, a type of mystic Sephardic Jewish music.Restoration of the synagogue was one of the ambitious projects undertaken by the government, which seeks to restore the rights of the often neglected minorities of the country, to promote coexistence after decades of policies suppressing minorities' rights. Turkey's Jewish population stands at 20,000, according to unconfirmed figures. The Jewish community found a haven of tolerance in the Ottoman Empire for centuries after the conquest of Byzantine cities by the Ottomans. The community particularly flourished after Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition settled in Ottoman territory in the 15th century, and many members of the present-day community trace their ancestry to those who arrived from Spain.