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Turkish Nationalists Gatecrash Orthodox Christian Celebration
Assyrian International News Agency ^ | January 6, 2005

Posted on 01/07/2005 8:33:12 AM PST by miltonim

ISTANBUL (AFP) -- Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving the flag of an extreme right-wing party Thursday tried to disrupt a Greek Orthodox religious ceremony here called the benediction of the waters of the Bosporus, eyewitnesses said.

As part of a tradition dating back to Byzantine times, a crucifix is thrown into the waters and young divers plunge in, competing to recover it.

Some 60 nationalists interrupted the proceedings waving flags of the National Action Party (MHP) and chanting: "This is Turkey here, like it or leave it."

Hundreds of members of Istanbul's Greek Orthodox community attended the traditional ceremony held every January 6, the date of the Orthodox Christmas, on the banks of the stretch of water known as the Golden Horn, which cuts into the western side of the Bosporus dividing the city's European and Asian sides.

Police held the intruders back, and they later made an equally unsuccessful attempt in fishing boats to invade the section of water where the ceremony took place.

Istanbul has a Greek Orthodox community several thousand strong.

The Istanbul patriarchate is a regular target of demonstrations organised by Turkish nationalist movements. A home-made epxlosive device was thrown into the Patriarchate gardens last October, but caused only minor damage.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: christians; islam; muslims; orthodox; orthodoxchristmas; turkey; turkishchristians

1 posted on 01/07/2005 8:33:13 AM PST by miltonim
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To: miltonim

Islamic tolerance rages on


2 posted on 01/07/2005 8:34:04 AM PST by thoughtomator (Flush twice, it's a long way to France)
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To: miltonim
"This is Turkey here, like it or leave it."

Do these guys know that Turkey was a Christan country until conquered my muslim armies and forcibly converted to islam?

3 posted on 01/07/2005 8:35:46 AM PST by 2banana (They want to die for Islam and we want to kill them)
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To: miltonim
an extreme right-wing party

Mohammedans.

4 posted on 01/07/2005 8:37:16 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: thoughtomator

These are the same people who murdered, robbed and conscripted over 2 million Armenians and other minorities, including Greeks when Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) was in power. They deny it all the time, but nothing is changed. I thought it was a condition of Turkey's membership in the EU that she admit and apologize about the whole holocaust? What happened to that demand? (Maybe I should not say anything. The last time I brought this up here, I was attacked mercilessly.... everything from cold indifference and outright denial to open contempt...'time to move one' was the attitude I think was expressed.)


5 posted on 01/07/2005 8:42:07 AM PST by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else." Lucius Septimus Severus to his sons)
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To: miltonim
Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving the flag of an extreme right-wing party Thursday tried to disrupt a Greek Orthodox religious ceremony here called the benediction of the waters of the Bosporus, eyewitnesses said.

Why can't they just call these people what they really are--Islamic nut-jobs who can not tolerate Christianity. They're not "right wing" by any stretch.

Yeah, Turkey is ready to enter the EU...
6 posted on 01/07/2005 8:43:57 AM PST by Antoninus (Santorum in '08)
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To: Antoninus

"Yeah, Turkey is ready to enter the EU..."

And Mexico will be any better for the USA?


7 posted on 01/07/2005 8:47:23 AM PST by JFK_Lib
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To: JFK_Lib
And Mexico will be any better for the USA?

Mexicans actually integrate into US society pretty well after a generation or two. Not so the Turks. There's also the small matter of Mexicans being Christians whereas the Turks still worship a black box that commands them to kill everyone that doesn't worship it...
8 posted on 01/07/2005 11:15:07 AM PST by Antoninus (Santorum in '08)
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To: Antoninus

Sure Antoninus, thats why so many Mexicans cheered the Mexican soccer team aginst the US, join racist groups like MECHA and promote 'Reconquista'.

Get real.


9 posted on 01/07/2005 11:17:10 AM PST by JFK_Lib
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Muhammad's Koran-inspired persecution of Christians, Jews and all non-Muslims continues...
10 posted on 01/07/2005 11:25:00 AM PST by miltonim (Fight those who do not believe in Allah. - Koran, Surah IX: 29)
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To: Antoninus
actually its a meteor (a black rock) in the black box (kabba).





You should see the pictures of what the turks do to christian graves, this is nothing.
11 posted on 01/07/2005 11:56:11 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: JFK_Lib
Sure Antoninus, thats why so many Mexicans cheered the Mexican soccer team aginst the US, join racist groups like MECHA and promote 'Reconquista'.

Do you actually know any Mexicans or people of Mexican ancestry?
12 posted on 01/07/2005 2:18:08 PM PST by Antoninus (Santorum in '08)
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To: Antoninus

"Do you actually know any Mexicans or people of Mexican ancestry?"

Yes, I have worked with legal and illegal MExicans in the US.

I have also worked with US citizens of mostly Hispanic decent and they are totally different from the Mexicans.


13 posted on 01/07/2005 3:55:13 PM PST by JFK_Lib
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To: thoughtomator

60 people in acity of over 12 million!!! What is wrong with you people?


14 posted on 01/09/2005 5:18:00 AM PST by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: SMARTY

When Kemal PAsa was in power? Where did you learn your history from? What holocaust? Get a life and read some real history book without forged documents and political propaganda.


15 posted on 01/09/2005 5:19:43 AM PST by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: longtermmemmory

Who worships this did you say?


16 posted on 01/09/2005 5:21:33 AM PST by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: Antoninus

Have you ever heard of the words Inquisition or Crusades?


17 posted on 01/09/2005 5:23:49 AM PST by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: SMARTY
The Armenian thing occurred during the last years of the Sultanate and was one of the disorders that g=occasioned the revolt of the Young Turks, led by Mustafa who became Ataturk. The Greeks rose to expel the Turks from coastal Turkey and the Greek army invaded to support the effort. What then happened to the Greeks in Turkey is what has happened to losers in wars in that part of the world for many centuries. Greece and the Greeks were and still are very much part of that world.

Europeans and Americans idolize the Greeks because of our inheritance but the Greeks of old fought their wars in the manner of that ancient world and the Greeks today, just as the Turks, have not shed that heritage.

Insisting that one side in such a scene is Holy and always Good and Right and the other is Evil and always Wrong is just picking which contestant you like in a dogfight and insisting that one is Holy and the other is Satan. Preferring the Chrstian side is rational because of your heritage but it is just choosing sides.

18 posted on 01/09/2005 5:51:22 AM PST by arthurus (Better to fight them over THERE than over HERE.)
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To: Turk2

What's wrong with us people is that we have seen this sort of thing to be a preview of escalating attacks, and wonder if this is yet another.


19 posted on 01/09/2005 6:22:00 AM PST by thoughtomator
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