The below article detailing the extent to which the Turkish government is going to systematically dismantle and asphyxiate the Christian community is both sobering and disturbing. Every Archon should read this in its entirety.

“Turkey’s Persecution of Protestant Christians,” by Uzay Bulut, European Conservative, October 25, 2024:

Turkey’s government has a secular constitution, but it has nevertheless opened mosques around the world including Europe, Asia, Africa, as well as North and South America. And, although Turkey is both a NATO member and an EU candidate, it refuses to officially recognize the Protestant Christian community. Moreover, Turkey refuses to allow them to operate their own churches and to freely share their faith with their fellow citizens. At the same time, Turkey has converted many historic churches and monasteries into mosques, stables, warehouses, mess halls, ammunition stores, or private houses, among others.

In July 2024, Turkey’s Regional Directorate of Foundations ordered the evacuation of the ‘French Church’ in Bursa before August 24. The Directorate claimed that the historical building was structurally unsafe, as the groundwater level was very high, and that a reinforcement project must be implemented. The news website Middle East Concern reported:

No alternative meeting places were proposed and the request for the church to erect a tent for meetings was refused (barring special religious holidays). Bursa used to have more than 100 functioning churches, but today, the French Church is the only church open for Christian worship there.

Representatives of the church, in collaboration with a certified office of the Chamber of Geological Engineers, prepared a report, assessing the risks as considerably lower than claimed by the Directorate of Foundations, noting that during thorough structural examinations and restoration work from 2002 to 2004, no significant problems were revealed, and repairs had been made to any superficial cracks.

In a 20 August press statement, the Bursa Protestant Church Life and Culture Foundation petitioned the authorities to have the evacuation order cancelled. In an interview with local television, the Protestant pastor, Ismail Kulakcioglu, asked why the evacuation order had to begin with the church, and he requested that a committee of experts be established to examine the situation from a scientific perspective.

The ‘French Church’ was built in the late nineteenth century by French traders and restored in 2002-2004. It is used as a regular meeting place of worship by the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant communities.

Meanwhile, the Protestant community is targeted with entry bans, forcing several expatriate Christians to leave the country. All of this is happening in a historically Christian land.

Anatolia (modern Turkey) is often referred to as ‘the second Holy Land’ after Israel. It is the birthplace of many apostles and saints, such as Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, Nicholas of Myra, and Polycarp of Smyrna. Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 13 are attributed to St. Paul. Six were written to churches or saints located in Anatolia. Antioch (in Anatolia) is where followers of Christ were called Christians for the first time. Anatolia is home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where the Revelations of John were sent. All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in Anatolia. Of these, the Nicene Creed was declared during the First Council of Nicaea (present-day Iznik) in A.D. 325.

Despite being a central place in the foundation of Christianity, today only 0.1% of Turkey’s population is Christian—mainly Greek, Armenian, or Assyrian Christian. The collapse of Turkey’s Christian communities is a result of a centuries-long persecution which includes genocides, expulsions, pogroms, forced conversions to Islam, official and civil discrimination, and other human rights abuses. There is, however, a growing Christian demographic through Turkish converts to Christianity, many of whom convert to a Protestant church. For years, the Protestant community has struggled with many problems, including a lack of official recognition by the Turkish government.

Since 2010, Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches has released an annual “Human Rights Violations Report” which details the state of religious freedom in the country. This report sheds light on the problems Protestant Christians face. Tactics include barring foreign Protestants from entering Turkey on the sole basis of their faith. The most recent report for the year of 2022, published in June 2023, is immensely valuable for understanding what Turkish converts are currently experiencing.

A major difficulty faced by Protestant Christians in Turkey is the refusal of the government to recognize their community as a legal entity. This makes it difficult to establish and maintain places of worship. Because Turkish members of the Protestant community are mostly new Christians, they do not have historic religious buildings. They lack the same cultural and religious heritage of Turkeys’ other traditional Christian communities. And the usable number of historic church buildings is very limited, according to Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches.

Therefore, a large portion of the Protestant community overcomes this problem by establishing an association, a religious foundation, or by gaining representative status with an existing association or religious foundation. This latter option allows them to rent or purchase property. However, they are not considered a ‘historic’ church structure but rather a stand-alone building, shop, or depot. A very small number have been able to build their own free-standing buildings. Many of these premises do not have official status and are not formally recognized as a place of worship, despite their usage. They cannot benefit from the advantages or conveniences given to officially recognized places of worship, such as free electricity, free water, and tax exemptions.

When Protestant Church leaders rent these places and publicly introduce them as a church, they receive warnings that the venues are not legal and may be closed. The growing Protestant community faces serious problems related to having places of worship, as Open Doors, an international human rights organization, notes:

Purchasing premises for church use can prove to be very difficult, since zoning laws tend to be arbitrary. Turkish law stipulates that only certain buildings can be designated as churches. Whether or not a specific building may be used by a religious group as a church is highly dependent on the political and personal leanings of the local mayor, as well as on the attitude of the local population….

Read the rest here.