Turkey

Published by The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2004

Christians in Turkey Face Harsh Historical Realities

Reporter Hugh Pope neglects in his Nov. 26 page-one article "Spiritual Journey: In Muslim Turkey, a Minister's Quest: Starting a Church" to provide some important historical information. Referring to "an international 1923 treaty," Mr. Pope doesn't explain that before, during and after the so-called exchange of populations, hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Greeks were savagely murdered by Turkish troops in Asia Minor. My mother's family was forced to watch while my 15-year-old uncle was shot and my aunt savagely raped, followed by the family's forced deportation, via whatever small craft could be found. Many more drowned before they could reach neighboring Greek islands, and hundreds of Eastern Orthodox churches and chapels were desecrated. The Greek Orthodox Church , which retains a tenuous foothold in Istanbul since the recognition of the Christian faith by Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, has had difficulty maintaining its historic existence once Asia Minor became Turkey.

I applaud Rev. James Bultema's crusade to establish a church and wish him success. But knowing pertinent historical events in Turkey makes clear the problems he or any other cleric faces in asking permission to establish a Christian church in modern day secular Turkey.

One single quote in your article clearly illustrates the insolvable issues the democratic Western nations face with the Islamic world. Nizamettin Sagir, head of the National Action Party in Antalya, states: "Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think America is being run by a Christian sect that has cast a hungry eye on our region."

Excuse me, but where is such evidence? Just one attempt to build a single church in Turkey? Just how many new churches, synagogues or Buddhist temples have been opened the past decade in the Arabic nations? Yet new mosques and Islamic study and cultural centers open daily in the U.S. and Europe. In my own backyard, the northern suburbs of Chicago with sizable Jewish populations, several mosques have recently opened. What we view as basic rights for all citizens, freedom of worship and an aversion to state-sponsored religion, are concepts totally unheard of in today's Arabic nations. How does a democracy grapple with granting rights to those, who if they had the power, would deny these very rights? If there is to be a conspiracy to be believed, it should be the spread of radical Islam throughout the West.



Volume 6 Number 51 - Tuesday, December 21st, 2004	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY