Turkish Police close church for "offending society"

Bible Network News ^ | July 9, 2002 | Barbara G. Baker, Compass News

[eleni121]

Although most churches have been destroyed in Muslim Turkey, some churches in Turkish occupied Cyprus have become hotels, bordelos, rooming houses, etc. Many others have met the same destructive fate as in Turkey and Kosovo however - elimination from the face of the earth. The Soviet Communists took a lesson in church destruction from the Turks.

[eleni121]

In greece they've outlawed the methodist church

Your claim is patently False!!! Father George (Methodist) has even started a Kosovo outreach program from Thessaloniki in Greece.

As for your comments about the Armenian Christians - nothing could be further from the truth! 99.9% of Armenians either died in the genocide committed by Turks or have left many years ago.

Finally, the reason that some Eastern Orthodox Christian countries are resistant to proselytizing by other Christian denominations (Roman Catholics for example) is that it is simply not needed. Why would one Christian group want to evangelize another Christian group? Why not evangelize the unchurched instead?

[lexington minuteman 1775]

and Turkey was one of the first places the Gospel flourished during the first and second century.Amazing what repression and persecution can do.Thanks for the photo.That really drives it home

[Destro]

and Turkey was one of the first places the Gospel flourished during the first and second century.

It wasn't Turkey then either in name or population. The first Turks appeared in Anatolia around 1,000 years after.

[Destro]

Red Jones, the reason the Protestant congregation was using the Armenian Church was because it was available. Not many Armenians in Turkey left to fill it anymore.

[Destro]

Click on the link and view the slide show of that pogrom.

[Red Jones]

why thank you for correcting me; I read several years ago that methodist church had been considered a cult and restricted in greece, perhaps info I read was false or incomplete; The article mentioned armenian orthodox, I just used them as example; I know they were victims of genocide in 1910-1915.

[Cleburne]

I recieved this bit of news today from the Voice of the Martyrs:

TURKEY According to Turkish World Outreach, the Turkish Christian fellowship of Batikent-Ankara was closed down by local police during worship services on September 25. A television broadcast a few days before made slanderous claims about the believers, even accusing the Christians of smashing car windows in the neighborhood where the church is located. Fortunately, the believers have been well liked, except perhaps by leaders of a nearby mosque. Local officials have ordered the Christians to stop meeting despite the guarantees of religious freedom in the Turkish constitution. The fellowship has asked for prayer as follows: that none of the believers will be abused and lies about them will be exposed publicly, that they will love and pray for those who persecute them, that they will know the peace of God and have wisdom in dealing with police and various officials, that Muslims will come to the defense of the rights of the believers, and the news media will see this as a matter of religious freedom and take the side of the servants of Christ.

[TopQuark]

The Soviet Communists took a lesson in church destruction from the Turks. A little over-reaching, isn't it? Did the Nazis learn hating the churche from the Turks as well? You make it sound as if the Turks were the root of all evil.

[TopQuark]

Finally, the reason that some Eastern Orthodox Christian countries are resistant to proselytizing by other Christian denominations (Roman Catholics for example) is that it is simply not needed. Eleni121, together with Supreme Soviet, has declared this to be so.

You do not subscribe to the principle: you simply choose camps.

[Hacksaw]

I thought OWB said Turkey was tolerant of Christians.

Hopefully this is just an isolated incident - Turkey seemed to be a enlightened nation.

[Destro]

Turkey is so tolerant of Christians, none are left in their land of origin.

[Hacksaw]

Turkey is so tolerant of Christians, none are left in their land of origin.

Let's us see what OWB has to say about this.

[RWG]

Of course that might be a good way to defend national security and we could try it too, shut down all the terrorists' havens, mosques that is.

[Dec31,1999]

bttt.

[a_Turk]

From what I understand the bleak economic picture in Turkey lately has emboldened Christian missionaries, who have had some some success in converting a few in exchange for a few pounds of butter, similar to the conversions which led to the Catholic Armenians and Lebanese (vs. Orthodox) in that area.

Such conversions lead to social unrest, mostly only domestically, but also on a communal level. We do not allow agressive tactics by Iran or Saudi Arabia (getting our population to wear the burka or grow beards for $50 per month), neither will we allow it by a "Protestant Christian" pastor who really has no congregation.

We would like to avoid intercommunal strife, so if cutting one throat saves many others, then so be it.

Religious programs are allowed on the airwaves, so long as they are not threatening to the overall peace.

The events that took place in 1955 against the Greek population were civil retribution against the massacre of Turkish civilians on Cyprus at that time. Others had left right after the Turkish War of Independence which followed WW1 in population exchanges of Greeks for Turks, which were part of a treaty.

Pay no attention to this Destro and Eleni121, who are hell bent on turning American popular opinion against Turkey.

Turkey is an ally of the USA, the pilots of which flew security missions over US soil following 9/11. Turkey has a long histor of religious tolerance (just ask the Jews), but will not tolerate the politicization of religion. If some subversives were Christians, then our actions against them cannot be seen as anti-Christian, just as our actions against those who were Muslim cannot be seen as anti-Muslim -- and there have been many.

There are pleny of Chruches in communities where Christian congregations actually exist. My mother is Christian, so I know that to be a fact. And I went to a Catholic high school in Istanbul, which is right next to a Catholic hospital. They've been there for over a century.

So to portray Turkey as anti-Christian is a ploy to get you to hate her, so that maybe one day the Greeks can benefit from your hate and realize their dream of a greater Greece.

[Mo1]

WIPE THE SMILE OFF OF THIS MAN'S FACE.

VOTE THE RATS OUT!!

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[Cleburne]

The logic that is used to justify the elimination of "socially provacative" groups or individuals is the same as has been used by every perptrator of genocide in the twentieth century. Why did Stalin need to wipe out the Ukranian farmers? They were disrupting the social order. Why did the Young Turks try to wipe out the Armenians back during WWI? They feared the Armenians would disrupt the social order. It is fearful logic, and any nation who holds to such ideas can never be in agreement with the West and liberty or freedom.

Turkey's tolerance of religion is thin at best, and this was proved when the millet classes began to rise economicly and culturaly- threatening the social order and domination by Turkish Muslims. As long as Jews and Christians and ethnic minorities remained subservient to the state they were fine. But when they began to raise their heads above the fixed social standards, the blade came down. One cannot justify Turkey's treatment of its religious and ethnic minorities under the veil of maintaining the status quo- at least, such arguments should not work with those who believe in freedom.

The same ideals behind the oppression of the teens are still present and- as we can clearly see- active in Turkey. To be fair they are hardly Muslim- but what is the point of trading out from Muslim oppression to secular oppression? Both fail to recognize individual rights. I would hope that the Turkish people will embrace a system of real individual freedom, and not accept a compromise that fosters oppression.

[RWG]

So to portray Turkey as anti-Christian is a ploy to get you to hate her, so that maybe one day the Greeks can benefit from your hate and realize their dream of a greater Greece.


Yeah, that's it. A greater Greece, not a bad idea. Thanks for the tip.

[eleni121]

Turks the root of all evil...Not completeley but almost, geopolitically/culturally, morally that is.

First, when Hitler was deciding about whether to proceed with concentration camps he referenced the Turks by commenting on the fact that the world took little notice when the Muslim Turks established concentration camps as they went about genociding the Christians - Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, etc. peoples who had lived in this region for thousands of years before the marauding Turks arrived on the scene.

Second, the Ottoman Turkish Emnpire has left a sordid mess of things from the Middle East to Africa to the Balkans. Forced migrations, colonial oppression, forced conversions, frequent mass killings, you name it they did it. We are living or rather suffering the results of hundreds of years of Turkish Muslim stagnation and oppression in that part of the world.