Turkish propaganda regarding Christianity

[Prokomenos]

An article I found off
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. Very interesting what was written and what Greek author responded:


Cover Story: Turkey�s Early Christian Roots
---------------------------------------------------------
In the ancient world, Turkey was a key crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East -- and the site of many of the most crucial events in the history of Christianity. The Apostle Paul lived in the city of Ephesus for perhaps as long as three years, and used it as a stopping point during his missionary journeys. The area was also important for another early church leader, St. John, who according to biblical tradition, was said to have presided over the churches of Asia Minor and credited for bringing Mary, the mother of God, with him to spend her last days in a small house outside Ephesus. All seven Ecumenical Councils met in Turkey to formalize doctrine, among them, the influential Council of Nicea in 325, which established a creed still recited in churches around the world. And Constantinople became the new capital of the Holy Roman Empire until the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453, transferring the Middle East balance of power from Christianity to Islam.

Kim Lawton's visits several historic religious sites in Turkey for a look at the important role this land played in the development of early Christianity. "Christianity has some of its earliest beginnings in Turkey," observes Professor Allen Callahan, Society for Biblical Studies. "Pound for pound, as it were, we have more remnants of Christian antiquity in Turkey than anywhere else."


Dear Religion and Ethics Newsletter Editor

This is the most distorted reading of history I have ever come across! It is the most anachronistic approach to the truth I have ever seen. Outrageous!

Kim Lawton should be embarrassed to have written such a blatant propaganda piece!

And you as an editor should be chastized for such an uninformed and insulting article!

Professor Callahan's comment is ahistorical, inaccurate and totally unjustifiable!

The modern country of "Turkey" did not come into existence until the 20th century. Its existence is not even a century old. It was preceded in history by the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor which lasted for about 5 centuries before the appearance of Turkey as a nation.

And when Turkey did come into existence it did everything it could to extirpate all Christian presence in the land. What was allowed to remain was taken over for Muslim use (Aghia Sophia Cathdral), copied (the Blue Mosque) or cynically used to attract tourists. The rest was systematically destroyed, including the Christian populations in Turkey. Among these were the Armenian Christians (genocide); the 1955 Pogrom of Greek Orthodox Christianity (a quarter of a million Greek Orthodox forced out), both of which are widely documented. For just one example, see Speros Vryonis' The Mechanism of Catastrophe.

This is rewriting of history of huge proportions!

Your article should have referred first to Asia Minor as the location of much of early Church life. The Byzantine or East Roman Empire lasted for over a thousand years in the area from the early 4th century to the mid-15th century, when in both Asia Minor and in Palestine as well as elsewhere, Christian life, monuments and literature flowered.

"Turkey" played absolutely no role in the development of Christianity in that area. Rather, it has done everything possible to destroy every vestige of Christianity in that land, constrained only by International agreements.

You need to apologize to hundreds of thousands of modern Christian martyrs, Christian exiles, and to peoples and institutions whose properties have been exapropriated and whose Christian instutions (such as the Halki Theological School arbitrarily shut down decades ago) have been eliminated.
Shame!

Stanley S. Harakas

[Megale]

Originally Posted by Prokomenos
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An article I found off
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
. Very interesting what was written and what Greek author responded:


Cover Story: Turkey�s Early Christian Roots
---------------------------------------------------------
In the ancient world, Turkey was a key crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East -- and the site of many of the most crucial events in the history of Christianity. The Apostle Paul lived in the city of Ephesus for perhaps as long as three years, and used it as a stopping point during his missionary journeys. The area was also important for another early church leader, St. John, who according to biblical tradition, was said to have presided over the churches of Asia Minor and credited for bringing Mary, the mother of God, with him to spend her last days in a small house outside Ephesus. All seven Ecumenical Councils met in Turkey to formalize doctrine, among them, the influential Council of Nicea in 325, which established a creed still recited in churches around the world. And Constantinople became the new capital of the Holy Roman Empire until the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453, transferring the Middle East balance of power from Christianity to Islam.

Kim Lawton's visits several historic religious sites in Turkey for a look at the important role this land played in the development of early Christianity. "Christianity has some of its earliest beginnings in Turkey," observes Professor Allen Callahan, Society for Biblical Studies. "Pound for pound, as it were, we have more remnants of Christian antiquity in Turkey than anywhere else."


Dear Religion and Ethics Newsletter Editor

This is the most distorted reading of history I have ever come across! It is the most anachronistic approach to the truth I have ever seen. Outrageous!

Kim Lawton should be embarrassed to have written such a blatant propaganda piece!

And you as an editor should be chastized for such an uninformed and insulting article!

Professor Callahan's comment is ahistorical, inaccurate and totally unjustifiable!

The modern country of "Turkey" did not come into existence until the 20th century. Its existence is not even a century old. It was preceded in history by the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor which lasted for about 5 centuries before the appearance of Turkey as a nation.

And when Turkey did come into existence it did everything it could to extirpate all Christian presence in the land. What was allowed to remain was taken over for Muslim use (Aghia Sophia Cathdral), copied (the Blue Mosque) or cynically used to attract tourists. The rest was systematically destroyed, including the Christian populations in Turkey. Among these were the Armenian Christians (genocide); the 1955 Pogrom of Greek Orthodox Christianity (a quarter of a million Greek Orthodox forced out), both of which are widely documented. For just one example, see Speros Vryonis' The Mechanism of Catastrophe.

This is rewriting of history of huge proportions!

Your article should have referred first to Asia Minor as the location of much of early Church life. The Byzantine or East Roman Empire lasted for over a thousand years in the area from the early 4th century to the mid-15th century, when in both Asia Minor and in Palestine as well as elsewhere, Christian life, monuments and literature flowered.

"Turkey" played absolutely no role in the development of Christianity in that area. Rather, it has done everything possible to destroy every vestige of Christianity in that land, constrained only by International agreements.

You need to apologize to hundreds of thousands of modern Christian martyrs, Christian exiles, and to peoples and institutions whose properties have been exapropriated and whose Christian instutions (such as the Halki Theological School arbitrarily shut down decades ago) have been eliminated.
Shame!

Stanley S. Harakas

Not surprising at all. Its been said before, Asia Minor was a site of immense Greek and European high civilization that was rundon by the Muslim hordes. What is left now are the ruins, in a land now hostile to its former inhabitants.

Heres an article:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


John Kass

Ancient faith faces an uncertain future


Published November 26, 2006


Imagine the Vatican surrounded in a fiercely secular yet very Muslim Italy.

The Christian community there has dwindled to only a few thousand after decades of ethnic cleansing. Much of the church's property has been seized. The government has closed the only seminary and refuses to reopen it.

A law has been passed: Any future Roman Catholic pope must be born on Italian soil, even though there is no seminary to train the young priests, even as the Christian community shrinks to a handful. A cold shadow falls on the Western church.

I asked you to imagine this because it's going on, right now, but not in Rome.

It is happening in Istanbul, where Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, patriarch of Constantinople and spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Church, is facing extreme pressure by the Turkish government.

This week, Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Turkey and pray with Bartholomew, and witness the liturgy in the Church of St. George.

The focus will be on the pope relying on the patriarch to help make inroads with Muslims, after comments the pope made this year about violence and Islam.

But I hope his visit will also draw attention to the desperate plight of the Orthodox Church, which has been largely ignored. There are an estimated 250,000 Orthodox Christians in the Chicago area, enough, you might think, for attention to be paid, especially now.

The pope will hear the liturgy as it was sung more than a thousand years ago, when there was only one church, before the split into East and West.

"They will exchange the kiss of peace, and they will bless the people, and they will recite together the `Our Father' in Greek, the original [scriptural] language," said Archbishop Demetrios, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, who will lead the American delegation.

"Then the two of them will go out to the elevated balcony, if you remember it, and bless the people who will be gathered in the courtyard," the archbishop told me.

I do remember. I was there, at St. George, at the patriarchate this past summer, watching the baptism of my nephew. We had the honor of visiting with Bartholomew, who said with a smile that he reads the Chicago Tribune online.

Obviously, I have strong, personal and religious feelings about this and can't pretend otherwise, yet I mean no disrespect to Turkey or to Islam.

The streets in that quarter of Istanbul are narrow. The bus stops at the bottom of the hill. You walk past a few shops, on up, and eventually, through the gates of the compound.

Once there, you begin to realize how central the patriarchate has been to Christianity, dating from about A.D. 300, when the Gospels of the New Testament were being selected, and later, when the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith recited by Catholics, Orthodox and other Christians, was created before the schism.

That the media ignores the patriarch's plight is astounding and hurtful to me. As is the realization that all that history could be gone if things don't change in Istanbul, in what was once called Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire.

At the patriarchate, one of the exterior doors is never opened. It has remained closed since 1821, when Greece fought for its independence from the Ottoman sultans, and the patriarch then was dragged out and hanged from that very doorway.

Today, Turkey is a fascinating, wonderful place, worthy of American tourism, worthy of American respect.

The people are friendly and hospitable, and the history is astounding. The Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, the ancient covered market, still thriving. That it has remained a nation is testament to the intense will of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern secular Turkish state, which now must deal with growing Islamic fundamentalism.

All of this is important for Americans to grasp, as the West realizes, finally, that ignoring Islam is impossible.

For me, it was especially important to visit Hagia Sophia, literally, the Church of Divine Wisdom, the ancient domed structure that was turned into a mosque when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453.

It is an immense structure, larger even than its copy, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and is nearly 1,500 years old.

There, I thought of the worshipers fearfully singing the liturgy as the city walls were breached, as the slaughter began, as a Christian empire that had stood for more than 1,000 years perished.

Most icons were destroyed, but you can see the Virgin Mary on the wall near what had been the altar. A sign prohibits religious observance, but the guards don't stop you from praying.

Pope Benedict is also scheduled to visit Hagia Sophia, now tersely referred to as a museum.

As he visits there, the news images may be sent around the world to remind us of what was, and how what little is left is slipping away.

[Κονσταντινοσ]

Every night i pray that the empire should be restored and Constantinople again be the centre of orthodoxy. With the patriarch sitting on his throne in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, and christianity again flourishing in asia minor.

I want to go to Constantinople, and pray in the great church:)

[pankration]

A reunification of Constantinople with Greece will never happen. However, if the Turks had ANY brains they would return Hagia Sofia to the Greek Orthodox Church. They gain nothing by desecrating it except animosity. By returning it they show religious tolerance, atonement and political good will. And for a country that wants into the EU this would be a simple decision. But we're dealing with a Turkey that is slowly being taken over by Islamic fundamentalism. I see no hope.

[Ellinas]

If Turkey was "taken over" by Islamic fundamentalism, there would be hopes of Agia Sofia becoming Orthodox again. But Turkey is "taken over" by Kemalist nationalism and this is what makes something like this impossible.

[Enigma]

Se ligo paidia tha lene otoi oi Ellines pote den yphrxane etsi pos ta pame. Kathe mera kapio krato prospathoune na paroune kath.

[pankration]

Originally Posted by Ellinas
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If Turkey was "taken over" by Islamic fundamentalism, there would be hopes of Agia Sofia becoming Orthodox again. But Turkey is "taken over" by Kemalist nationalism and this is what makes something like this impossible.

Might you explain a bit further? I'm not familiar with Kemalist nationalism other than what the media portrays so I wouldn't mind a bit more info.

[Anngora]

Originally Posted by Ellinas
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If Turkey was "taken over" by Islamic fundamentalism, there would be hopes of Agia Sofia becoming Orthodox again. But Turkey is "taken over" by Kemalist nationalism and this is what makes something like this impossible.

Yea be sure that islamists whould die to make peace with christian ortodox Greeks.

Agia Sophia is a museum now,actually kemalists made it museum,islamists have a great passion to make it Mosque again.

[Anngora]

Originally Posted by pankration
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A reunification of Constantinople with Greece will never happen. However, if the Turks had ANY brains they would return Hagia Sofia to the Greek Orthodox Church. They gain nothing by desecrating it except animosity. By returning it they show religious tolerance, atonement and political good will. And for a country that wants into the EU this would be a simple decision. But we're dealing with a Turkey that is slowly being taken over by Islamic fundamentalism. I see no hope.

pankration I really would have no problem with that,but you know it's very sensitive issue in Turkey,I don't think any politician would even talk about it.

[Anngora]

Originally Posted by pankration
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But we're dealing with a Turkey that is slowly being taken over by Islamic fundamentalism. I see no hope.

Btw its not true,AKP is the only religious party right now among the all other parties (leftist,rightist,fascist,communist,liberal etc). AKP took 10 Million votes that's true,but Turkey's population is 70 Million.

The problem is 10% rule, which means that million of Turkish voters have no voice in Parliament on the back of the electoral system that elects their representatives.