Free Republic

VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Despite a personal request from Pope Benedict XVI and repeated requests by Christian leaders in Turkey, the Turkish government has decided that the only church in Tarsus, the city of St. Paul's birth, will remain a government museum. The Church of St. Paul, built as a Catholic church in the 1800s and confiscated by the government in 1943, was used throughout the 2008-2009 year of St. Paul for prayer services by Christian pilgrims. After the end of the yearlong celebration commemorating the 2,000th anniversary of St. Paul's birth, the Turkish government decided the building could not be used...

Istanbul, 24 Dec. (AKI) - Turkey's 100,000-strong Christian community was on Monday hoping that Christmas this year would pass uneventfully without further sectarian attacks such as that earlier this month against an Italian Catholic priest - the latest of several in little over a year. As schools and offices in the overwhelmingly Muslim majority country will be open on Tuesday, 25 December will simply be a day that comes between Eid al-Adha (the Islamic festival of sacrifice) and the New Year celebrations. Christmas trees decked in glass baubles and Christmas lights have been put up in some streets and shop...

PRIEST'S KILLING SHOCKS CHRISTIANS IN TURKEY Feb. 06 (CWNews.com) - A Catholic priest was shot and killed in Trabzon, Turkey, on Sunday, and authorities there are investigating whether the murder was related to Islamic anger over cartoons published in European newspapers. Father Andrea Santoro, an Italian missionary priest who had served in Turkey for 10 years, was shot twice at point-blank range in his church in the port town on the Black Sea. The gunman shouted, "Allah is great!" before running out of the church. Bishop Luigi Padovese of Anatolia, who rushed to the scene on hearing of the priest's...

ANKARA (Reuters) - An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon on Sunday, police said. They gave no more details, but CNN Turk television said police were looking for a young man aged about 17 years old seen fleeing the scene. CNN Turk showed a small crowd of onlookers near the Santa Maria church where the priest was killed. The state Anatolian news agency identified the dead man as Andrea Santaro, aged 60. Other Turkish media said he had been in Turkey about five years. Anatolian quoted Trabzon governor...

NKARA - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has issued a Christmas message to Christians in Turkey today. Sezer said that he joins in the celebration of Christians over Christmas. ''We share the excitement and happiness of our Christian citizens for Christmas. Christmas reminds our multi-religious society about the historical ties that exist between all of us with warm feelings. Christmas carries new hopes of love, peace and brotherhood,'' stated President Sezer. (full article)

The government fears too much publicity focused on Bartholomew I and criticism about the country’s human rights record. Nuncio Farhat: “Turkey, a nation which is an enemy of Christians”. Ankara (AsiaNews) - After much hedging, the diplomatic but nonetheless clear response came yesterday from Ankara about the anticipated trip of Benedict XVI. The eagerly awaited invitation from the Turkish state did reach the Vatican but with a vague and diplomatic: “We expect you in Turkey for 2006”, inexonorably placating “the pangs of the pope, which have shaken the state so much”; this is how insistence on the papal visit was...

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...

Last Updated: Monday, 6 September, 2004, 09:34 GMT 10:34 UK Clashes erupt at Turkey protestProtesters burned an effigy of the patriarch Police in Istanbul have clashed with Turkish right-wing demonstrators protesting against what they describe as concessions to Orthodox Christians. Turkish media said the police used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of protesters marching towards the offices of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Earlier on Sunday, the crowd burned his effigy and threw stones at police. Some nationalists have been angered by the government's decision to allow the reopening of an Orthodox seminary. The Istanbul seminary, closed by the...

This week's attacks on churches in Iraq are a reminder of a small community that has lived for years with the term "beleaguered", but has the potential to re-establish a more tolerant way of life in the Middle East. It might easily be assumed that Iraqi Christians are a colonial implant that any self-respecting nationalist would view with suspicion. But in fact they are among the oldest religious communities in the world. Protected for most of their long history by Islam's tradition of tolerance, they are honoured for their own great gift to mutual understanding: Syriac, a version of Jesus's...

ISTANBUIL, February 21 (IslamOnline.net) - The growing wave of Christian missions in Turkey has a marginal impact and should be confronted through better understanding of Islam and improved economic conditions, a Turkish theology professor said. In an interview with IslamOnline.net, Hidayat Aydar said proselytizing attempts are noticeably growing in the predominantly Muslim country as well as the entire Middle East. Only people with complete ignorance of Islam could be lured by the promises of better economic conditions made by missionaries, he said. A report aired by Channel 7 on January 13 indicated that a group of 50 to 60 people...

After being beaten into a coma three months ago for alleged “missionary propaganda,” Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli has been slowly improving from a nearly helpless state. Cindilli, 32, was hospitalized the third week of October after four men linked with the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) beat him severely on his head and face for distributing New Testaments and “doing missionary work.” At a court hearing on December 17, about 60 MHP sympathizers gathered outside the courthouse in a show of support for two of Cindilli’s assailants who remain in jail. Metin Yildiran, president of the local MHP chapter, was...

Last year, as some of you may know, a conference entitled "Portraits of Christian Asia Minor" was held at Macquarie University. The Conference was attended by the Turkish Consul who, reportedly, after the conference requested a meeting with Senator John Nimrod, from the U.S., who is also, President of the Assyrian Universal Alliance. The Consul expressed his regret for what had happened in the past, explaining that the Turks are trying to turn a new page with the Assyrians. He advised that he is personally working to establish contact and good relations with the Assyrians.[1] I am reporting this here...

"Turks tend to place Christians in the same category as Armenian terrorists." In response to my post regarding Turkish hostilities against non-Muslims, the following email arrived. It was speaking to another email I had received from a Turkish Muslim who defended Turkish Muslims, saying they practiced a religion of peace. Here is the anguished email from a Christian: "Ask him about the Armenian genocide that the Turkish government does not even recognize in their history books. My grandmother was beaten, stabbed and left for dead and her whole family killed, all in the name of Muslims trying to eliminate Armenian...

“We have the right to become Christians. Yet we cannot build for ourselves places of worship.” -------------------------------------------------- Diyarbakir Council Declares Worship Place ‘Illegal’ Seven months after the newly constructed Diyarbakir Evangelical Church opened in southeast Turkey, a local council under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has again protested against the building’s use as a place of worship. Pastor Ahmet Guvener was served written notice on October 30 by the Diyarbakir Culture and Natural Structures Protection Council that the use of his building for any purpose except as a home was illegal. Signed by Mehriban Karaaslan, the document declared that...

Government Bureaucracy Blocks Official I.D. Changes Two months after Deniz Kasan and Turgay Papakci said their wedding vows before 200 relatives and friends at the Istanbul Presbyterian Church this summer, the bride went to her local population bureau to update her registration data. Along with confirming her new marriage status and changing her surname, the bride had another application to submit: changing her religious identity from Muslim to Christian, just as her new husband had done two years earlier. But to Kasan’s shock, her routine application was refused by the Kadikoy “kaymakam,” or presiding district official. In a notice issued...