Epress.am News from Armenia
Andreas Zografos, 63, born in Turkey, Greek by ethnicity, and his wife today tend to the 19th-century St Nicholas Church, where his grandfather painted vibrant icons, on Heybeliada, or Halki in Greek, an island off the Turkish coast. Zografos, speaking to Reuters, expressed his concern for the state and future of the country’s Christian minorities.
In the 20th century, large numbers of Christians were forced to leave their ancient land and now make up just 0.13 percent of Turkey’s population of 73 million people, reports Reuters. Some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000 Syriac Orthodox also live in Turkey, and there are much smaller communities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics (which include some Armenians), Chaldeans and others.
According to the article, Turkey has confiscated billions of dollars worth of property belonging to Armenian and Greek foundations when they can no longer fill schools or churches. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled these seizures are illegal.
Religious freedom is enshrined in Turkey’s secular constitution. Turkey spurns the outright religious rule of some Muslim states, writes Reuters. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to expand rights for religious minorities to meet the standards of the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join. But many Christians say they still face deep-rooted discrimination.
However, Zografos, who left Turkey in 1974 amid economic and political turmoil but returned, fears that decades of economic discrimination and sporadic violence may leave many Christians with no choice but to leave:
“Soon there will be just one or two of us left on the island. I don’t see anything else but the end.”