TURKISH CHRISTIAN POPULATION REMAINS STEADY
by Martin Barillas
Spero News
Nov 27 2006
Cardinal Ignace Moussa Daoud, Vatican prefect of the Congregation for
Eastern Churches, spoke on Vatican Radio November 23rd and said that
the number of Christians living in Turkey is holding steady at 30,000.
Cardinal Daoud said that Catholic and other Christian communities
are diverse on the Anatolian peninsula. For example, there are two
Latin-rite bishops in Turkey, two Armenian Catholic prelates, as well
as patriarchal vicars for Syrian Catholics and Chaldean Catholics.
Catholics of the Maronite and Byzantine rites are also notable.
Turkey, Cardinal said, is the cradle of Christianity, having witnessed
early councils such as Nicea (in 325 AD and 787 AD), Ephesus (431 AD),
Chalcedon (451), and Constantinople (381 AD, 553 AD, 680 AD and 870
AD). It is "a privileged place for the implantation of Christianity",
said the cardinal, that saw "the flowering of theologies and of rites"
that gives its rich mosaic of Christianity today. At Ephesus is found
a small house where, according to tradition, lived the Virgin Mary
after the death and resurrection of Jesus that remains a place of
pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims.
Cardinal Daoud will join Pope Benedict XVI on the latter’s visit to
the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and to Turkey, along with
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, President of
the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity Cardinal Walter Kasper,
President of the Pontifical Council for Culture Cardinal Paul Poupard,
and retired Vatican diplomat Cardinal Roger Etchegary.
The cardinal said that he hopes that Turkey will remain a place of
"fraternal dialogue between religions and cultures." In addition,
the cardinal said "Turkey calls to mind in a special way the memory
of Our Lady and the Apostles."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
