Posted on 01/05/2015 6:05:08 AM PST by marshmallow
Ankara (AFP) - Turkey's Islamic-rooted government has authorised the building of the first church in the country in nearly a century, officials said Saturday.
The church is for the tiny Syriac community in Turkey and will be built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey's religious leaders in Istanbul on Friday and said no faith that has lived in the country could be regarded as foreign.
"It is the first (new church) since the creation of the republic (in 1923)," a government source told AFP.
"Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new church has been built until now," he added.
Turkey, which once had large Christian minorities, is now 99 percent Muslim and critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have accused it of trying to Islamicise its officially secular society.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Turkey, which once was ENTIRELY A CHRISTIAN NATION, was invaded and conquered by islamic armies which gave the native population three choices:
1. Convert
2. Die
3. Become a third class citizen in an apartheid like state with laws such as you can't build a place a worship for 100 years...
....And sadly, may be falling back to that early practice under Edgroin, so I am very surprised this church building is even being permited.
In 2001, Turkey had 71,000 students enrolled in the imam schools. Now, there are 670,000.
Islamic teaching to six-year-olds.. Systematic Islamist indoctrination in Turkey is becoming less stealthy.
Education is the new battlefield. Turkey’s government is pushing to advance its declared policy goal of “raising devout (Muslim) generations.”
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