First new church in Turkey in more than 100 years
Turkish President Erdogan (centre right) when he laid the foundation of the new church in Istanbul in 2019. Left of Erdogan, the Syriac (Assyrian) Orthodox Patriarch Yusuf Cetin. Right of Erdogan, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew. This year, the church will be opened. Photo AFP, Ozan Kose
Southern Europe
In a few months, there will be the first opening of a newly built church since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
St. Ephrem Church is built in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The construction started three years ago. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally laid the foundation stone in 2019. He then said that it is the task of the government to ensure that Christians have enough churches for their worship.
The Belgian church news channel Kerknet reported this.
Permission
The building of St. Ephrem is the first church that has been built with government approval in more than a century. In the past, the various church communities received permission to restore and renovate existing churches but not for new projects.
The construction of the church in the Bakirkoy district, commissioned by the Syriac Orthodox Church, must be completed within two months. The cost of construction is estimated at 4 million euros.
The church can accommodate 700 believers. The building also contains several floors with additional meeting rooms. There is also a clock tower.
Cemetery
The Syriac Orthodox Christian community in Istanbul is estimated to number between 12,000 and 17,000 believers.
This community also has an older church building in the Tarlabasi district of the city. But that has been far too small for years. In 2015, then-Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced the construction of a new church on the site of a former Catholic cemetery that was confiscated in 1950 by order of the Turkish state.
Officially secular
The Turkish constitution has been officially secular since the state's founding by Kemal Atatürk. However, religious minorities outside of Sunni Islam repeatedly suffer from discrimination, the Austrian news service Kathpress sums up. The Turkish state officially only recognises the Greek Orthodox Church, the Armenians and Judaism as religious minorities. Only these groups can –sometimes– have their schools and other facilities. The Syrian Orthodox Church, like the Catholic and other churches, are not recognised as minorities due to a disputed interpretation of the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne.
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