RELIGIOUS COMPROMISE
By Richard Miniter
Wall Street Journal
June 1 2007
Van, Turkey
Our story starts with a small sandstone 10th-century Armenian church,
on an uninhabited rock less than 500 yards wide, in a remote Turkish
lake that changes colors like moods and sometimes bubbles like soda.
If you had seen the ruins of it, as I did in 2000, you might cry. Its
roof was gone. Its bas-reliefs, chiseled by master carvers a millennium
ago, of Adam and Eve, of saints and kings, were wearing away in the
wind. It was an empty husk that had not heard a Mass in more than
90 years.
In March, after years of painstaking restoration, Turkey reopened the
church as a museum. Among the ambassadors and visitors at the opening
ceremonies, I roamed the grounds. The building is now magnificent.
Its roof is restored and its reliefs cleaned.
Church of the Holy Cross in Van, Turkey The Church of the Holy Cross
is one of the holiest sites for Armenian Christians, who once made
up one-third of the population around Van.
They were driven out by the Ottomans in 1915, when some were suspected
of supporting Russia-backed terrorist attacks. During World War I,
the Ottomans were allied with Germany and Austria, fighting Russia,
Britain and France. While most Turkish historians concede there was a
massacre of Armenians (while pointing out that Armenians slaughtered
Turks from 1890 to 1915 and that most Armenians were relocated,
not slain), they hesitate to call it genocide. The Armenians do not
hesitate — and sometimes compare it to the Holocaust. The Armenian
Diaspora has emerged as a real political force in Western Europe,
complicating Turkey’s plans to join the European Union.
The re-opening of the church was a peace offering by the AKP,
Turkey’s Islam-oriented ruling party, but all did not run smoothly at
first. After spending millions on the structure, the Turkish government
refused to restore the stone cross on the steeple. Turkish journalists
were quick to criticize. Ultimately, common sense prevailed.
"I cannot say we will have the stone-cross back there tomorrow, but
I do not see any problem in that," Culture Minister Attilla Koc said.
He wanted time for an "academic council" to consider the
issue. Mr. Koc’s answer might not sound "revolutionary" to our ears,
but Turkish News columnist Yusuf Kanli declared it so. Many Christian
churches have been waiting for decades for permission to restore
their churches at their own expense.
At the opening of the Church of the Holy Cross, I met George Kumar,
bishop of Turkey’s some 20,000 remaining Roman Catholics. He said
that five churches in Istanbul alone are still awaiting approval to
be repaired. "I wish they would let us restore all of the churches,"
he said softly, but he doesn’t want to push. "We will wait and pray."
Nor did Armenian Christians who attended the opening ceremonies
complain. They told me that they were there for history and for
peace. Of course, the Turks would buy a lot of goodwill by lifting
restrictions on repairing churches. Many Turkish politicians (even
members of the AKP) see it this way. But Egemen Bagis, the prime
minister’s foreign policy adviser and a member of Parliament, says
that "Turkey is a democracy, not a sultanate." Rebuilding churches
here is like building mosques in America and Europe, controversial
among ordinary citizens. Still, the blind machinery of the law lets
mosques go up in Boston, Chicago and the rural plains of Virginia.
Italy and Spain have seen some of the world’s largest mosques change
their skylines.
Mr. Bagis stresses religious tolerance. "In my neighborhood in
Istanbul, there are Christians, Muslims and Jews living side-by-side.
My children have Christian and Jewish friends." He is right. That is
the way forward.
So far, everyone has acted with admirable restraint. The Armenian
Patriarch, who spoke at the opening ceremonies, asked only if a Mass
could be celebrated in the church once a year. The culture minister
may let a cross grace the roof. Some 3,000 people have visited the
church since its re-opening earlier this spring. Turkey’s critics
focus on its Ottoman past and, more recently, its Islam-oriented
ruling party. They miss the spirit of compromise that prevails in
the republic. It is this spirit that unites Turkey with the West
and separates it from its Middle East neighbors. A difference made
manifest by a small church in Van.
Mr. Miniter is the Washington editor of PajamasMedia.com and a fellow
at the Hudson Institute.