In 1972, Yorgo Güller, a Greek Christian from Istanbul, visited leafy Burgazada, one of the Princes’ Islands just off the city’s coast, looking for love. Almost forty years later, he is still there tending to a neglected, 18th century Greek monastery.
Summer homes still line the vegetable garden of Aya Yorgi Garibi, which some believe translates as “Saint George the Destitute.” But the only year-round tenants are Güller, his Muslim wife, and 48 families of Alevi Shi’a Muslims, Turkey’s largest religious minority.
The tolerance at Yorgi Garibi recalls the days of cosmopolitan Constantinople, when Greeks numbered in the hundreds of thousands. But a land dispute dating to the expulsions of Greeks in the 20th century threatens that easiness. In an ironic twist, the Turkish government is now telling the low-income Muslim families to leave.
Fast forward to a more peaceful time. Güller is Aya Yorgi’s caretaker. Inspired by churches he had seen on a boat trip around the Greek islands, Güller gave the monastery’s faded green and yellow façade a new coat of paint. “Blue like the sky and white like innocence,” he said of the choice. “An Armenian friend of mine donated the paint. And then a Turkish friend and me painted the walls ourselves, tying ladders on top of each other because we didn’t have the money or the authorization for scaffolding.”
Greek families on the island asked him not to paint the church blue and white, the colors of the Greek flag, afraid Turkish authorities might see it as a provocation. To the neighbors’ surprise, the authorities were delighted. The local mayor voiced his approval, as did the commander of the nearby naval officers’ high school.
Because the Patriarchate does not send a priest to Aya Yorgi, Güller has installed loudspeakers around the chapel. Every Sunday morning at 6 a.m., he tunes in to a religious radio station in Greece to listen to a service. “The liturgies read in Istanbul churches are not as beautiful as I remember them being as a child,” Güller said. “Many of the priests just don’t care anymore because the congregations are so small now.”
Poignantly, today it is not the Greeks facing expulsion from this multicultural stronghold, but the Alevi families. A priest in the 1970s invited the Alevis – originally migrant workers – to stay as thanks for helping him take care of the facilities. Though the acres they tend outside Aya Yorgi’s walls have belonged to monastery since 1884, when a wealthy Greek family donated them, disputed regulations dictate that land Greeks left behind must be ceded to local authorities. A Turkish foundation now lays claims to the property.
Until the 2000s, when real estate prices boomed on the Princes’ Islands, no one had sought ownership. But in 2010, a court awarded the property to the foundation.
Though Aya Yorgi itself is not threatened, Güller says its way of life is and vows to fight for the monastery’s Muslim friends.
“Aya Yorgi Garibi has always been a shelter for the destitute,” Güller, who has led an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights over the evictions, enthused. “This is blatant injustice. … And with God’s help, everybody will be able to stay.”
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