CivilnetThe Turkish government grants permission to build a new church for the first time in the history of the Republic of Turkey. The new church will serve the Syriac Christian community of Istanbul. Historian Nicholas Al-Jeloo from the University of Melbourne speaks to CivilNet about this decision. He thinks that this new step would be very significant for the Assyrian community in Istanbul, which is starting to build its presence in that city.
According the Al-Jeloo, the Assyrian community has never been a large community or well established such as the Greek, Armenian or the Jewish communities of Istanbul. The community of 20 thousand has its different factions, segments and religious denominations like the Syrian Orthodox, Syriac Catholics and the Chaldean Catholics. The largest one among these main three groups is the Syriac Orthodox, that will now have a place to accommodate its worshipers. Until now, the community had only one church in Istanbul built in 1865, located in the central Tarlabasi neighborhood, which was enough for the community until the 1970s. However, when the conflict grew in southeastern Turkey between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many of the Assyrian villages in the Mardin province began to be emptied out and their inhabitants fled to Istanbul and other countries in Europe as refugees. As a result, the community in Istanbul grew and started to accommodate its worshipers in other churches. They have been renting churches belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church in and around Istanbul to cope with housing their other worshipers.
However, building a church in Turkey is not a simple task. Al-Jeloo explains that a portion of the land given by the Ministry of Religious Endowments to the Assyrian community to build its church on, is confiscated land from other Christian denominations. He says that this is creating another conflict, and that is the reason why the building process hasn’t started yet. According to Al-Jeloo, Turkey is trying to portray an image of allowing religious freedoms for various ethnic and religious minorities. Recently an Assyrian pre-school was also established in the outskirts of Istanbul.
“This is significant for Assyrians, because they are not recognized as a minority within Turkey, unlike Greeks, Armenians and Jews. The Assyrians, Kurds, Alevis, Laz, Hemshin, and all the other little ethnic or religious groups don’t get a mention at all. However, we should also remember that Assyrians have a powerful lobby in Sweden, Germany and within the European Union, broadly speaking. So I think it could be a move on part of the Turkish government to try to ensure Assyrians in Europe that the Turkish Government is providing them with these newly acquired rights or benefits so as to keep them in check to not bring the Genocide issue so much. Because if you look at the Assyrian activism in Europe for the past 15-20 years, the largest agenda that has been pushed is the Genocide issue,” concludes historian Al-Jeloo.
