Turkish Christians assist Syrian refugees

Syrian refugees are in the fight for their lives in Turkey. The Islamic State has forced thousands from their homes. Now they’re trying to survive in camps in snow and subfreezing temperatures.

International Needs Turkey Director Behnan Konutgan is with the refugees handing out warm clothing. “It’s 6 degrees centigrade below zero (21 Fahrenheit).” And it’s snowing.

The needs are great, Konutgan says. And while “the evangelical church [in Turkey] is very small, [they] have done marvelous things for the refugees. They are welcomed by the local authorities. They respect the churches, and they welcome us very well.”

It’s strange, because Turkey is predominately Muslim.

Konutgan says these refugees were stuck in the mountains without food or water. “When I say that this support comes from the churches, they say, “Ah ha! Because of the churches, we are safe.”

The stories from the mountains are horrible. One woman told Konutgan that some of women didn’t want to see their children suffer, so they threw them off the mountains to their death.

Another woman told him that she had given her daughters to a Saudi man and gave him $50. He said he would take care of them until after the conflict was over. She hasn’t heard from the man and believes her daughters were kidnapped.

Christians are meeting the refugees in their despair, providing hope found in Christ alone. You can help, too.

Konutgan says the refugees want to know about Jesus. And in the midst of tragedy, God is working. “They hear the Bible, so this is a good opportunity for the Gospel. I’m sure they will come to Christ Jesus. There are thousands of people among them who secretly say they love Jesus.”

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Turkish religious thinker ponders future of Islam

In an article on Dec. 28, Gultekin went beyond the Erdogan-Gulen acrimony and raised a more basic question: Why have Muslims failed so spectacularly for 1,400 years to establish just, prosperous and peaceful societies? In the article, Gultekin challenged those Muslims who fall back on the tired excuse of “but this isn’t real Islam” when confronted with extremist groups such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. “Which one is real Islam?” he asked, and lamented how “as people’s religiosity increased [in recent years], so have their sinfulness.”

“The problem,” Gultekin said, was not Islam but “our inability to understand the religion in the context of the 21st century.” And he warned, “Unless we find a way out, we will destroy ourselves.”

“Islam never practiced what it preached,” he said. The only exception, he argued, occurred for a short period under the second caliph, Omar Ibn al-Khattab (634-644), who he said achieved social peace and good governance by ignoring the most draconian elements of the Quran. When Islam mixed with politics and dynastic disputes later on under “Ali, Aisha, Uthman, [t]he Umayyads, the Ottomans, etc., [it] lost its purpose.”

For Gultekin, the parallels with present-day Turkey are unmistakable. “Take Fethullah Gulen,” he said. “He studied the Quran for 40 years, read the hadiths and was cultivated in Islamic manners, yet that did not stop him from committing injustice against other people. Or [take] Tayyip Erdogan. He was raised with Islamic discipline for 40 years — on values such as haram, halal, fear of God — but we can all see where that has taken him. Now people ask, ‘If religion cannot make these men honest and moral, how is it going to [help] us?’”

“So, do you think ascending to power has stained the Islamist movement?” I asked. Gultekin corrected me, saying, “Gaining power has not stained Islamism — it has destroyed Islamism. Islamism has nothing to give to society anymore because Islamists have nothing left to say.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/veteran-religious-thinker-ponder-islam-paris-attacks.html##ixzz3OrwF2ps4

Turkey's Protestants complain of discrimination, harassment

While barbaric attacks such as the one on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo raise concerns of Islamist extremism and sometimes spark Islamophobia in the West, Turkey's tiny Protestant community is reporting intolerance toward Christians.
The Union of Protestant Churches, the umbrella organization for all Protestant denominations in Turkey, published its "Rights Violations Report 2014" on Jan. 7 on its website. The document contained a long list of incidents of harassment and discrimination faced by church members throughout Turkey in the past year.

Fortunately, it lists no assassinations and murders. Yet, still there are various hate crimes that reflect bigotry against Christians on a societal level. Examples include threats to local churches and small-scale attacks such as suspected arson or the breaking of windows. There are also cases of humiliation and threats to converts from Islam to Christianity. Missionary work, in particular, was met with hostility, as Protestants faced threats while trying to share their faith.

Some of these threats came from ordinary citizens, but there are cases of official harassment as well. In Izmir, for example, a group of Protestants was detained briefly for engaging in "missionary activity," which is actually not banned by Turkish law, yet is still widely opposed. In another incident during Christmas in Antalya, the police confiscated Bibles from a Protestant booth.

Most probably, none of these incidents reflect a policy decided at higher levels. They rather seem to reflect a societal intolerance that influences policymakers in a bottom-up fashion, and the report notes that nuance. First, it lists numerous occasions in which the Protestants' reasonable demands to establish places of worship, proclaim their faith or celebrate their holy days such as Christmas were rejected by mayors or other local administrators in various parts of Turkey, from Istanbul to the southeast. These rejections, the report argues, are mainly caused by local politicians worrying over losing votes and "local administrators' unwillingness to be seen as 'those who allow the building of churches.'"

To understand the deeper dynamics of the problem, Al-Monitor spoke to Umut Sahin, the secretary-general of the Union of Protestant Churches and himself a Protestant convert. Sahin cited some facts about his community. There are currently some 50,000 Protestants in Turkey, he said, but most of them are expatriates from the West. Native Turkish Protestants, he added, number only about 5,000 individuals, nearly all converts. Some 4,000 of these are converts from Islam, while the remaining 1,000 are converts from Eastern churches, such as the Armenian Church.

One fundamental problem, Sahin argued, is that while the Turkish government recognizes traditionally established communities — such as the Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic or Syriac churches — it does not recognize the Protestants. "No wonder," he said, "we were not invited to the meeting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had with non-Muslim leaders on Jan. 2." Apparently, because the Protestants are largely recent expats and converts, unlike the historically established churches, it makes them somehow less legitimate in the eyes of the authorities.

What is it, exactly, that threatens the Protestants of Turkey? Is it Islam or Turkish nationalism, sometimes overlapping yet still distinct forces?

Sahin responded with a history lesson, saying, "Turkish Christians became publicly visible in the aftermath of the great earthquake in 1999." This, he noted, was the first time Christians, especially Protestants, came out to organize charities for the victims of the disaster, which killed tens of thousands and left many others homeless. But the authorities, ever suspicious of civic groups, saw their work as a threat to the nation's unity. Hence, in 2001, "missionary activity" was defined as a national threat by the National Security Council, which was dominated by Turkey's secularist (and very nationalist) generals.

In the next six years, Turkey's Christians suffered a series of bloody attacks inspired, at least at the ideological level, by the ultranationalist ideology that some hard-line generals supported. That is probably why Sahin spoke positively about the Ergenekon trials, which began in 2007 and put hundreds of ultranationalists, including some retired generals, in jail. The dominance of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) over that old guard was good news for Christians, Sahin argued.

Yet he said the AKP era, too, began to lose its charm after 2011, when the governing party initiated a growing anti-Western discourse. Turkey's Christians are Turkish, not Western, yet still they are easily brushed aside by Occidentalist narratives that depict the Christian West as the enemy of Muslims. This rhetoric appears almost daily in Turkey's pro-AKP media, discomfiting Turkey's non-Muslims.

In short, it can be said that anti-Christian bigotry in Turkey is deeply rooted, and its nationalist roots probably go even deeper than its Islamist ones. Granted, the AKP offered a breath of fresh air during its battle with old nationalist guard. But to establish full religious freedom, the AKP should challenge and defeat the bigotry in its own Islamist base, rather than surfing it to advance a self-serving anti-Western discourse.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/turkey-france-christianophobia-turkish-protestants.html#ixzz3OmUWWPsP

Turkey gives green light for new church, but Christians are wary

Barely a month after Pope Francis’ Nov. 28-30 visit to Turkey, in which the pontiff pushed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on religious freedom, the government has given a green light to build a Christian church for the first time in almost a century.

The only problem is, Turkey’s Christians have been down this road before.

The announcement was made Jan. 2 by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after a three-hour meeting with Turkish religious leaders in Istanbul. Davutoglu reportedly said, “We do not consider any religious or cultural tradition as an outsider.”

The permission applies to a new church structure for Turkey’s burgeoning Syriac Christian community, most of whom are refugees fleeing ISIS forces in their home nation. The cost for the project is estimated at $1.5 million.

Syriac-speaking Christians compromise several traditions within Eastern Christianity, united by the use of a language related to Aramaic, the tongue that Bible scholars believe was spoken by Jesus.

Davutoglu said the permit to build a new church, which he called a “first” since the creation of the Turkish republic in 1923, is important “in the context of equal citizenship.”

Since becoming an official secular state, Turkey would sometimes grant permits for existing churches to be expanded or remodeled, but not to build new ones.

More than 20,000 Syriac Christians live in Istanbul. Without any official church of their own, the parishioners worship in rented Catholic buildings located throughout the city.

Although Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey may have contributed to the breakthrough, there’s a long way to go for this announcement to become a clear sign of an improvement for the day-to-day reality of Turkey’s Christian population.

The building of a church for Syriac Christians was first announced in 2011, when after two years of tussling and hairsplitting, the community secured approval from Erdoğan, who at the time was prime minister, and then-President Abdullah Gül.

Both in 2011 and this time around, when the announcements were made of approval for the building project, no location was disclosed other than the general neighborhood.

In 2012, Istanbul’s city government granted the Syriac Orthodox a plot to build a house of worship, but the Christians rejected the offer on the grounds that the allotted property was a Catholic cemetery and should be returned to its rightful owner.

They insisted on a separate plot to build the church, but no offer was ever forthcoming. As a result, the church was never built, making some Christians in Turkey skeptical that things will be different this time.

Turkey’s Syriac Orthodox population is rapidly growing as a result of the more than 1 million Syrian refugees that are currently in Istanbul and other metropolitan areas waiting for a permanent relocation outside of Muslim-majority country.

Turkey’s constitution protects the right to freedom of belief, the right not to believe in anything, and the right to change one’s belief.

In practice, however, those who profess a religion different from the Sunni Islam patronized by the state are often discriminated against when looking for a job, applying to a school, or running for public office. The Turkish ID card includes religion as personal information, so each person’s religious affiliation is a matter of public knowledge.

Minority rights and religious freedom are one of several sticking points in negotiations with the European Union about Turkey becoming a member.

The closure of the Orthodox seminary of Halki since 1971 has become a symbol of the difficulties still to be overcome, and is often cited by Human Rights observers as religious freedom indicator.

Halki was once among the most important centers of learning and culture in the Orthodox world, and its closure seriously limits the ability of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to shape new generations of clergy.

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Turkey permits first new church in 90 years

Not exactly true, as local governments have approved church buildings, but still an interesting turn of events:

Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government has authorized the building of the first church in the country since the end of the Ottoman empire in 1923, AFP has learned.

The church is for the country’s tiny Syriac community and will be built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.

“It is the first since the creation of the republic,” a government source told AFP Saturday. 

“Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new church has been built until now,” he added. 

Turkey, which once had large Christian minorities, is now 99 percent Muslim, and critics of the ruling party AKP have accused it of trying to Islamicize its officially secular society.

However, as part of its bid to join the European Union Amlara has made efforts to widen minority rights and return some seized property and restore churches, monasteries and synagogues.

The country’s ancient Syriac minority, which now numbers less than 20,000, live mostly in the southeast, and tend to be either Orthodox or Catholic.

The church will be built on land given by the local council and paid for by a Syriac group, the government spokesman, who asked not to be named, said.

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Suspect confusion at Kadıköy Church arson case

Arson, not an accident, was the cause of the fire that broke out on the night of December 7, Sunday, at the building that is home to KKBD (Holy Bible Society) and KUT (Kadıköy International Community Church). According to Pam Ohanyan of KUT, thousands of Holy Books and CDs were destroyed in the fire that broke out on the floor where the library of the church was also located.

The local newspaper ‘KadıköyLife’ had previously claimed that the fire on the night of December 7 had been caused by a short cut in the electricity supply to the Christmas tree. However the security camera recordings of the building the church and association are located in have revealed that a suspect broke into the building and the fire began while the suspect was in the building.

http://www.agos.com.tr/en/article/9914/suspect-confusion-at-kadikoy-church-arson-case

Turkish Public Education System to Offer Class in Christianity for First Time

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The Turkish education system's mandatory religion classes are not fair to students who do not follow the country's majority Sunni Islam and it must amend its policies, according to a recent verdict of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), reports World Watch Monitor.

As Turkey is a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR decision is binding.

Religion classes, starting in elementary schools, are according to the Turkish Constitution to be neutral lessons on religion, but critics say they impose Sunni Muslim rituals in class that many Turks - including non-Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews and atheists - don't espouse.

Turkey is a secular Muslim state, with almost 97% of the population nominally Muslim.

While Sunni Muslims represent about 70-80%, about 15-25% of the 75 million population are Alevi, a mystical school of Shia Islamic theology. This makes them the country's largest religious minority, though they are not recognized as such.

Turkey insists that their differences are cultural, and thus does not grant them exemption from religion classes.

However, in September the ECHR ordered Turkey to allow students to be exempt from classes when their parents request it, without them having to disclose their religious beliefs.

Then on Oct. 9 the Education Minister Nabi Avci announced that Turkish schools will soon offer an elective in Christianity. However, currently Christians and Jews are in fact exempt from the compulsory courses offered from fourth grade, age 9, and throughout high school. By conservative estimates there are under 100,000 Christians in Turkey.

Religious freedoms expert, Mine Yildirim, of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) for Human Rights says that this announcement, though a welcome move towards diversity and inclusion, seems to entirely miss the point of the European Court's verdict.

"Adding Christianity as an optional course does not address any of the outstanding and important freedom of religion or belief problems in the education system," Yildirim told World Watch Monitor. Yildirim is the project head of the NHC Freedom of Belief Initiative for Turkey.

Though the decision of the ECHR is binding on Turkey, its top leaders brushed off the court ruling, provoking criticism and protests. Prime Minister Davutoglu defended the Islamic religion curriculum saying "it is a requirement for an atheist to know about religious culture, just like I should know about Marxism even though I'm not a Marxist," Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the ECHR ruling calling it wrong and saying drug use, violence and racism will spread if the classes on religion are put to an end. "If compulsory courses on religion are challenged, why do they complain about drugs or terrorism?" he said, according to Today's Zaman.

Domestic Violence in Turkey

This is an issue that effects all facets of society.  Please be in prayer for these women and the Church as it attempts to reach out to them:

Domestic violence is considered a personal, not a public, matter. So witnesses comfortably turn the other way if they see a man beating a woman in the middle of the street, because this is a private matter. On May 3, a 26-year-old woman was beaten to death in broad daylight in Mugla province.
Scream if you are attacked was the only viable advice AKP government provided for victims. The victim screamed — as Family Minister Aysenur Islam had previously advised children to do if they were attacked — but the AKP minister’s magical formula failed the victim. The perpetrator was her fiance. There were multiple witnesses. None of them thought it was appropriate to intervene. On Sept. 9, a pregnant woman was brutally beaten on a busy Istanbul street and no one intervened.
One of the female witnesses, Nazen, 64, told Al-Monitor, “We do not want to be involved in a private family matter. It is between a man and a woman. A woman is like a fig tree. If a branch is infested with worms, you must cut the tree or your entire orchard will be lost.” Nazen’s view of women’s purity is widely accepted in Turkey.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/turkeywomenmurder.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=23327&utm_campaign=0&utm_medium=twitter##ixzz3DHokPqx3

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Turkish minister: Christianity no longer a religion

Christianity has ceased to be a religion but has become a culture of its own, Turkish Environment and Urbanism Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar said at a recent conference hosted by the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) Women's Group. 
 
"The biggest three countries in the world are not Muslim countries. China, India – only the U.S. believes in a single God. Spirituality and religious feelings are weakening," Bayraktar said.
 
"There are 2.5 billion Christians in the world," Bayraktar said. "Christianity is no longer a religion. It's a culture now. But that is not what a religion is like. A religion teaches; it is a form of life that gives one peace and happiness. That is what they want to turn [Islam] into as well."
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Learn more about the Yazidi

 Thousands of people leaving their ancestral homeland. Women and children being kidnapped, raped, and sold as slaves. Men slaughtered by the dozens.

While this sounds like something from the Armenian Genocide, it is going on in the world as I write. In Northern Iraq, where the Babylonians and Assyrians once ruled vast empires, the Islamic State (IS) has been waging a genocidal war against the defenseless Yazidi people.

The IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/al-Sham/the Levant), is a descendant of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group the U.S. Army fought against for almost a decade. Taking advantage of the Syrian Civil War, the IS swept through Syria in 2013, capturing towns from Kurds, Syrian government forces, and other rebels. The IS continued to grow this year, and expanded operations into Iraq. Coupled with an Iraqi Army retreat, the IS’s advance led to gains just outside of Baghdad, hundreds of miles from where it started its rampage. After capturing Mosul in the north, Iraq’s second largest city, the IS started to consolidate its gains. Ethnic Yazidis, fleeing from almost certain death, collected on Mount Sinjar, and were soon surrounded by IS forces. Facing starvation, heat stroke in the 100-degree Iraqi sun, and massacres, the Yazidis became a sort of call to action.

As their history is mostly based in oral tradition, Yazidis are often misunderstood. Most scholars identify the Yazidis as a subset of Kurds, as Yazidis speak Kurmanji, the most spoken dialect of Kurdish. A complex syncretism blending elements of Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, the Yazidi faith is based on the idea that God created the world and entrusted it to seven angels. One of these angels, Melek Taus, refused to obey God’s command to bow down to humanity, which is where many see the connection to the Biblical story of Satan. Melek Taus, usually represented by a peacock, became the most venerated of the seven angels after God forgave him. According to Prof. Keith Watenpaugh of UC Davis, “Over the last several centuries mainstream Sunni Islamic scholars have come to view the Yazidis as pagans—they are not considered people of the book (ahl al-Kitab); they are popularly viewed by many Muslims in Syria and Iraq as worshippers of the devil. This was the basis for their on again off again persecution by the Ottoman authorities through much of the last 500 years. The Salafist idealism of the IS takes a very hardline position on Yazidis as kafirs—unbelievers.”

Iraqi Christians, however, are seen as “of the book,” since Islam, Christianity, and Judaism share many common beliefs, such as monotheism. Because of this, the IS, as was done by the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic nations, has instituted a jizya tax system in some parts of their territories. Christians can pay a tax, often the equivalent of thousands of dollars per year, to continue their religious practices, although many churches, including Armenian ones (for example, St. Etchmiadzin in Mosul, and the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs), have been either destroyed or converted to Islamic centers.

The exorbitant sums of money the IS asks for are simply too much for most Christian families, who have fled their homes en masse. The IS has already killed close to a thousand Yazidis, according to the Iraqi government. It was the Yazidis that were penned up on Mount Sinjar, waiting for an imminent death in the 100-degree heat, trying to pile onto creaky Soviet-era helicopters in an attempt to escape. Some Yazidis marched through the Syrian Desert, away from their homes, the opposite direction marched by Armenians 99 years ago, yet under strikingly similar circumstances.

The world answered the Yazidis’ calls for help, as American airstrikes combined with attacks from the Kurdish Peshmerga broke down the IS’s siege of Mount Sinjar, allowing for thousands to escape. “The Yazidis are facing genocide and the limited Kurdish forces were having a very difficult time defending both Arbil and rescuing Yazidi and other civilians. … American intervention was justified by the civilizational imperative to prevent genocide,” Watenpaugh told the Weekly. With the United Kingdom and France, along with the United States, taking leading roles in humanitarian aid, the United Nations declared the situation in Iraq a humanitarian emergency, and has called for aid from around the world. Military aid, although committed to by many nations, has only started to funnel in, with Iranian arms just reaching the Peshmerga this week.

Watenpaugh noted that there is a degree of hypocrisy to the American position: The Yazidis were facing genocide, but Arab tribesmen just across the border in Syria were being massacred at the same time and the U.S. was unwilling to help. The U.S. has no cooperative, “on the ground” partner that is competent in the way the Kurdish Peshmerga are. American decision-making in Syria is still being guided by the mistaken belief that the Free Syrian Army represents a viable alternative to both the IS and the government of Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. faces no good options or easy answers in Syria; it does in Iraq.

Estimates of the Yazidi population range from 200,000 to 700,000, with the vast majority in Iraq, although that may not be the case for long. With tens of thousands already fleeing the reach of the IS, others are certain to follow. The Yazidi village of Lalish, located on the tomb of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, where every Yazidi makes a pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime, has not been attacked by the IS. However, being just about 40 miles to the northeast of Mosul, the village is susceptible to brutality from the self-proclaimed caliphate. The IS has already destroyed religious sites of various faiths, including Muslim ones, in cites they view as idolatrous. Earlier this summer, the IS destroyed the tomb of the Prophet Jonah, an important figure in the Abrahamic faiths.

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Baptist church leaders from 120 countries gather in İzmir for congress

The heads of Baptist churches from 120 countries gathered in the Aegean province of İzmir for a congress on “religious tourism” July 8.

Around 600 national and international guests attended the first session of “Religious Tourism Meeting of Civilizations” in Turkey, where the main topic of discussion centered on the importance of religious tourism.

The opening speech was delivered by Ertan Çevik, the Turkish representative of world’s Baptist churches and the head of the Turkey’s Protestant Baptist Church.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İzmir lawmakers Aytun Çıray and Mehmet Ali Susam, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) İzmir lawmaker Rıfat Sait and İzmir Mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu were among the participants.
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THE AK PARTY AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

"We will remove the foreigners dominating our market and hand over the Turkish market to Turks." This is how 1942-1946 Republican People's Party (CHP) government's Prime Minister Şükrü Saraçoğlu described the purpose of the capital tax introduced in 1942. These words explicitly summarize the approach toward the Turkish Republic's non-Muslim citizens by the CHP and the Kemalist ideology governing the state during the era of single-party rule: a totalitarian state mentality of policies to standardize society and create a homogenous nation by ignoring all diversity. Citizens of different religions endured some of the most discrimination from such policies – Armenians, Assyrians, Christians and Jews – those who did not qualify as the system's definition of a proper citizen were considered as a threat. 

In 1934, 15,000 Jewish residents had to leave their cities and even their country of residence as a result of the systematic pogroms against the Jews living in the Thrace region. In 1942, the capital tax law was introduced. According to this law, minorities constituting 1.98 percent of Turkish population according to the 1935 census were charged with 87 percent of the taxes accrued. The real aim was to reduce the influence of the minority communities and the elimination of their dominant status from the economy. In 1955, Greeks in particular had become victims of serious oppression as a result of the plunder and ravage movement, which is known as the Events of Sept. 6-7. In 1962, a Provisional Commission on Minorities, which was tasked to "track all transactions of minorities contrary to the national security," was established with a confidential memorandum. This commission was established to monitor the activities of non-Muslims and it served as the modus operandi of the systematic discriminatory policies. In consequence of such policies, thousands of residents had to leave their country, their goods were seized, and their schools and sanctuaries shut down. 

In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) became the ruling government with the support of Turks, Kurds as well as members of non-Muslim minority communities. Since the party took office, the government has pursued reforms aimed at democratizing the totalitarian state while being exposed to severe attacks and facing many allegations. The most striking attacks came from the groups who consider themselves the modern face of the nation. This segment of Turkish society claimed they were the Western side of Turkish society simply due to their secular lifestyle. 


Today, referring to the restitution of foundation assets, Mr. Erdoğan says, "These assets are not mine! So it's my fundamental duty to return them to their owners." He assesses the restitution of rights and reputation as a requirement of equal citizenship – law and justice – as opposed to the condescending attitude of the opposition. While doing this, he assumes risk contrary to the cautious state of mind stemming from the government and confronts criticism and exorbitant accusations that could even be considered conspiracy. All in all, an outburst by a former CHP parliamentarian toward AK Party members is still remembered: "You keep defending Agop's possessions, please at least once defend Mehmet's possessions." It should also be remembered that the Law on Foundations issued by the AK Party government in 2006 was partially vetoed by then President Sezer on the grounds that it was against national interests. Furthermore, this year a member of Parliament from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), in reaction to the restitution of foundation assets said, "We will take them all back." 

There is no such thing as a perfect democracy in the world as there are always deficiencies and more things to be done. For instance, the opening of the Theological School in Heybeliada is one of the present demands expected to be fulfilled in the future. What matters and what makes these processes functional is the demonstrated will to find a solution and the gratitude shown in return. Today, the AK Party and Erdoğan are pointed to by the very interlocutors of the problem as they address the solutions regarding the demands of non-Muslim citizens. Erdogan returned the assets of Christians and Jews previously confiscated by the state, published a message of condolences to Armenians for the 1915 Events, allowed the reopening of minority schools and monasteries, and enacted laws for combating hate crimes and discrimination. To our Western friends who declare the AK Party government as radical Islamists, ISIS supporter, anti-secular and authoritarian: We will pray for the removal of the curtains of prejudice from your eyes during the month of Ramadan.
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Ankara criticizes 'anti-Turkish' bill on Christian properties

Turkey has strongly criticized a U.S. House committee bill that directs the State Department to monitor the return of property confiscated from Christians in Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

"While the clear and concrete steps that Turkey has taken for the improvement of the rights and freedoms of all of its citizens, including for the non-Muslim minorities are evident; attempts by anti-Turkish circles in the U.S. Congress, driven by domestic political considerations, to push such unconstructive and baseless initiatives are unacceptable," Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement June 27.

The bill, which passed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, requires the U.S. secretary of state to provide an annual report to Congress regarding Washington's efforts to secure the return and restoration of "stolen, confiscated, or otherwise unreturned Christian properties" in Turkey and the northern Cyprus.

Terming the bill as "null and void as far as Turkey is concerned," the statement stressed that such initiatives were incongruous with the existing spirit of partnership and alliance between the two traditional allies.

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Christianity in Ataturk’s Capital

In Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, attending Mass on Sunday requires choosing between several embassies: the Italian, French, and Vatican properties each host Catholic chapels.

The British Embassy has a lovely Anglican church in its backyard while the Greek Embassy harbors a small Orthodox place of worship. Some Protestants hold services at a local U.S. military facility and evangelical denominations are said to rent office space.

But nowhere, in this metropolis of 5 million, will you find a free standing Christian church naming itself with a cross out front.

The situation results from a twist of history — and discrimination.

Kemal was elected president and renamed Ataturk (father of the Turks) by parliament. He initiated radical social changes aimed at converting Turkey into a secular republic.

Focusing on religion, he dismantled the Islamic power structure, put all mosques under state control, banned religious education, and restricted sacred construction. While private worship was constitutional, religion was eliminated from the public sphere.

This anti-religion ideology made it impossible for the Catholic Church to build new churches in a city such as Ankara, which had none.

Another problem facing Catholics since Ataturk is that the faith has no legal status: the Church can’t officially own property or operate churches, schools, or hospitals. 

Armenians, Jews, and Orthodox Christians are classified as Non-Muslim minorities, with some rights grounded in the 1923 Lausanne treaty, but Catholics have been excluded from protection.  

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Committee Vote on Turkey Christian Churches Scheduled

 The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), is set to consider H.R. 4347, the Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act, on Wednesday, June 18th at 10:00 am EST. Capitol Hill sources report that the Turkish Government is actively seeking to block adoption of this bipartisan religious freedom measure.

Introduced this March of this year by Chairman Royce along with the panel’s Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), H.R. 4347 would require that the U.S. Department of State formally report to Congress on an annual basis about the status of Turkey’s return of stolen Christian churches and properties in Turkey and occupied Cyprus. H.R. 4347 builds on a measure (H.Res.306), spearheaded by Chairman Royce and then House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA), which was overwhelmingly adopted by the House of Representatives on December 13, 2011. That resolution set the groundwork for H.R.4347 by calling upon the government of Turkey to honor its international obligations to return confiscated Christian church properties and to fully respect the rights of Christians to practice their faiths.

“We want to thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for advancing this religious freedom legislation and look forward to the Committee’s consideration of a principled and practical American stand in support of the rights of Christians in present-day Turkey and occupied Cyprus to practice their faith in their own houses of worship,” said ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian. “We are pleased to join with all believers in religious freedom – including of course our Cypriot, Greek, Pontian and Syriac brothers and sisters – in supporting this measure, and encourage all our friends to urge their legislators to support its timely passage by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the full House of Representatives.”
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