US Congress Set to Vote on Calling Turkey to Return Christian Churches

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday is set to vote on H.Res.306, a religious freedom measure that calls upon Turkey to return stolen Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and Syriac church properties, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reports.

This religious freedom measure, which was adopted 43 to 1 on Jul. 20 of this year by the Foreign Affairs Committee, was introduced by Representatives Ed Royce (R-CA) and Howard Berman (D-CA). It has been scheduled for a floor vote by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) under a special parliamentary procedure known as the Suspension Calendar. The text of the resolution that is set to come before the House will be the same as the abridged version adopted at the committee level.

“The bipartisan consensus and cooperation we are seeing in support of pressing Turkey to return stolen Christian properties within its present-day borders both reflects and also reinforces America’s enduring commitment to religious freedom, as so powerfully reaffirmed in the enactment by Congress of the International Religious Freedom Act, and so enduringly represented on the international stage by America’s leadership in supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

“We encourage supporters of religious liberty — of all faiths — to contact their legislators in support of H.Res.306, and call on all members of the U.S. House to cast their votes for this principled stand for freedom of faith.”