Turkish President Erdogan Seizes Six Christian Churches, Making Them State PropertyBY MICHAEL VAN DER GALIEN
APRIL 16, 2016
The 1,700-year-old Virgin Mary Syriac Orthodox Church in Diyarbakir was one of the churches seized. Image Courtesy of Shutterstock.
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's administration recently seized six churches as state property in the volatile southeastern part of Turkey. As World Watch Monitor reports:
After 10 months of urban conflict in Turkey’s war-torn southeast, the government has expropriated huge sections of property, apparently to rebuild and restore the historical centre of the region’s largest city, Diyarbakir.
But to the dismay of the city’s handful of Christian congregations, this includes all its Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches. Unlike the state-funded mosques, Turkey’s ancient church buildings – some of which pre-date Islam – have been managed, historically, by church foundations.
Because of this move, the churches in Diyarbakir now factually belong to the state. This includes a church that was built 1,700 years ago, and a new one, built in 2003.
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