Global Politician, NY
April 5 2008
The Greek Minority of Turkey
Theodoros Karakostas – 4/6/2008
Last July, Army officers in Turkey were arrested for planning the
assassinations of Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios I
and Mesrob II, Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The
targeting of the spiritual heads of these two ancient Christian
communities is symbolic considering the genocide of Armenians and
Greeks in Anatolia by Turkish regimes earlier in the twentieth
century. Human rights abuses against the Christians of Turkey,
harassment, and violations of religious freedom continue unabated in
Turkey. What is just as appalling as the relentless assault on
Christianity in Turkey, is the silence and lack of diplomatic
protests emanating from the international community.
It has become a matter of dogma for the foreign policy establishment
and much of the American media that Turkey is a "secular democracy".
On the basis of strategic considerations and mythical views about the
alleged moderation of Turkey, the Western world has stood by and
tolerated acts of terror and violence against peaceful Christian
communities that would have been denounced and opposed had they
occurred elsewhere. A case in point are the notorious September 6,
1955 pogroms that occurred in the historic Christian City of
Constantinople. For most of the world this tragic date has no
significance, but for Greek Orthodox Christians this date remains
forever locked in our consciousness and represents heartbreak and
mourning over the final stage of the destruction of Greek Orthodox
civilization in what was once the Capital of Christian Byzantium.
Heartbreak also because of the realization of younger generations of
Orthodox Greeks born and raised in America years after these events
that neither the United States, nor Europe, nor the NATO alliance
acted to defend democratic and moral values. On that terrible
September night, the Turkish government actively encouraged its
criminal and extremist elements to attack the Greek community.
Turkish police stood by while mobs of rioters physically assaulted
Greek men, sexually assaulted Greek women, and enthusiastically
destroyed Orthodox Churches while violating their sanctity in the
most appalling manner. A 90 year old Greek Orthodox priest was doused
with gasoline and set on fire. There were dozens of deaths, and in
the aftermath of this evening of terror thousands of Orthodox Greeks
fled from their ancestral homeland in terror.
The purpose of recollecting these horrors emanates from the fact that
the last vestiges of Greek Orthodoxy in Turkey are still under attack
as a result of the policies of the Turkish government. In late 2007,
a Greek Monastery on the island of Heybeliada was demolished, and an
editor of a Greek minority newspaper was beaten by thugs. The
Ecumenical Patriarchate is the victim of State sponsored
discrimination and is unable to operate the only Seminary inside
Turkey that would enable this historic Church to survive. The Western
democracies took no action to protest or condemn the Turkish pogroms
of September 1955, and that has been the active policy of the Western
governments up to the present day. Between 1993 and 2004, there have
been at least five arson attempts or bombings at the Ecumenical
Patriarchate.
Less than a century ago, Anatolia was populated with millions of
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians. The genocide of these
Christian peoples has been well documented by foreign diplomats,
missionaries, relief workers, and many others. In September 1922,
while American, British, French, and Italian warships were docked in
the harbors of Smyrna, the Greek and Armenian populations were
slaughtered by the armies of Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal. The future
Turkish dictator Mustafa Kemal is well known in the West and is
falsely represented as a liberal, despite his responsibility for the
mass exterminations of Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians
throughout Asia Minor.
There are many heroes and martyrs who deserve to be remembered by
free societies everywhere. Among them is the Greek Orthodox
Archbishop Chrysostom of Smyrna who sacrificed his life for his
flock, and was subsequently murdered in the most horrific fashion on
the orders of a Turkish General named Noureddin Pasha. There are a
great many Americans from this period such as Consul General George
Horton and relief worker Edward Hale Bierstadt who were present in
Asia Minor during this tragedy and have left behind documentary
evidence about the destruction of the Christians in Asia Minor.
Unfortunately, official US policy toward Turkey has taken an
indifferent position toward the Christians, and this remains the case
up to the present day. Greek Orthodox Christians pray and hope for
the security of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and for the last vestiges
of Greek Orthodox faithful in Turkey who continue to live under
excruciatingly difficult conditions even as their numbers dwindle to
the point of near extinction. Furthering the devastating attacks on
Greek Orthodoxy is the Turkish occupation of Cyprus where 200,000
Greeks have been ethnically cleansed by the Turkish Army, and where
over 550 Orthodox Churches have been desecrated or converted into
Mosques.
If democratic principles are to mean anything in reality, Ankara must
begin to receive serious scrutiny from Western media and the
democracies led by the United States must begin imposing serious
sanctions on Turkey for ongoing atrocities.
Theodoros Karakostas has a degree in Political Science and History.
He’s presently working toward a Masters degree in Eastern Orthodox
Theology. He writes extensively on issues pertaining to Eastern
Orthodox and Hellenic affairs, and contributed to the Boston Globe,
Washington Post, Washington Times, Boston Herald, USA Today, the
Financial Times, and the National Review, as well as to Greek
publications and to various Eastern Orthodox News Sources.