RU 05/2011 - Persecution of Christians in Turkey


TURKEY (ru, Feb. 9th, 2011) - Turkey is definitely viscerally anti-Christian. The most ancient monastery of Christianity, Mor Gabriel in the region Tur Abdin (south-east of Turkey), is the last target of hatred against those of the Turkish Christians whom they were not able to exterminate during the genocide of the early 20th century when 2 million of them have been murdered by the Turks. Now they want to cut the food to this monastic citadel erected in 397, by depriving it of its land and by demolishing the walls which surround it. They blame the monks (there are only remaining 5 of them, they were more than 1000 in the 6th century) to have erected their monastery “on a mosque", ignoring that in 397 Mohammed wasn’t even an embryo. From trials to trials, the case has been finally decided by the Supreme Court of Ankara on January 27th, 2011: the monastery loses all its land. Thus, since it will have no food any more, the monks will be forced to leave, after an uninterrupted presence of 16 centuries !

They belong to the Syro-orthodox Christians, from the former patriarchy of Antioch, speaking yet the Aramaic language of Jesus, which became the language of their venerable liturgy which is as old as the Latin liturgy. This area, where is also located the ancient Edessa, was, after Jerusalem, one of the first bishoprics of Christianity. Its monks were not only the precursors of monasticism, but also extraordinary theologians, philosophers and scientists, ensuring in particular the transcription of the heritage of the Greek philosophers into Syriac, and from the Syriac towards the Arabic (culminating in the universal Christian library of bishop Gregorius Bar Hebraeus of the 13th century at Mor Gabriel). Their doctors had such a reputation that the Sultans surrounded themselves almost exclusively by them. Today the Turkish State which wants to be "secular”, is laughing at its own history by despising its Christians, imitating thus the French revolutionaries and 'laicists’ still today in power in Paris. In Turkey all of the Christian seminars are prohibited: the last Syro-orthodox seminar in Turkey, precisely the one in the monastery Mor Gabriel, was closed by the Turkish government in 1980, and everyone knows that the last Orthodox seminar in Turkey depending directly of the patriarch of Constantinople, the seminar of Halki on the Princes Islands (about 1 hour from Istanbul), is closed by the Turkish Government since 1971. How can a Christian Church live without being able to train its new priests? Thus the genocide of 1915 continues.

Please send an inflammatory email to the plenipotentiary Turkish minister in Brussels, Mr. Egemen Bagis (egemenbagis@euromsg.net ), by letting freely speak your disgusted heart. Demand 1) the absolute respect of the millennium property of the monastery Mor Gabriel in the Tur Abdin region, 2) the reopening of the orthodox seminary of Halki, and 3) the return of the Christian Basilicas Hagia Sofia in Constantinople and Aya Sofia at Trabzond to the Christians. Otherwise: no Europe for you! We have already enough thieves in the European Union, there is no need to add other ones. Your email is one of the small services that we can render to our brothers and sisters who are persecuted for Christ under Islam. This effort is better than the big crocodile tears that people are showing presently everywhere. Thanks in advance, on behalf of the Christians in the Orient !

- O.A.M.D.G. -