“The Greeks who represent the last vestiges of Christian Byzantium and the Roman Empire are heading towards their final extinction in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with their numbers dwindling to a mere handful” under his Islamic hardline government.
Erdogan has made his ambitions clear: he wants a revived Ottoman Empire, and his actions have shown its determination. Yet still, talking about Islam remains an uncomfortable subject, as “neither the interviewees, perhaps understandably, or their interviewer, perhaps less understandably, touched to any great extent on the reasons so many Greeks have fled their ancestral homeland in recent years.”
The scourge of Turkey’s oppression against disbelievers is not felt only by its own Christian population, but increasingly regionally. Turkey is a growing threat to its rival Iran. America under Trump has observed the growing strength of Turkey’s commitment to Islam and the increasing threat it presents, and Trump therefore imposed sanctions. By contrast, the UK has just signed a multi-billion dollar trade deal that will serve to strengthen Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Western world promotes “diversity” at any cost, along with the “Islamophobia” subterfuge, and remains willfully blind as to the violent and expansionary foundations of Islam that have been clear for 1400 years.
“Last Byzantine Greeks Facing Extinction in Islamist-Led Turkey,” by Jack Montgomery, Breitbart, December 27, 2020:
The Greeks who represent the last vestiges of Christian Byzantium and the Roman Empire are heading towards their final extinction in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with their numbers dwindling to a mere handful under his Islamist government.
What is now Turkey only began to be colonised in by the Turkic peoples in earnest from around 1071, after their Seljuk ancestors had arrived from Central Asia and vanquished the Greek-speaking Christian ruler Romanos IV Diogenes’s forces at the Battle of Manzikert.
The last vestiges of the Byzantine state where finally snuffed out with the brutal conquest of Constantinople, widely regarded as the greatest Christian city in the world, in 1453, or arguably with the fall of the citadel of Salmeniko Castle in modern-day Greece in 1461, following a brave but doomed resistance by its commander, Konstantinos Graitzas Palaiologos.
Despite widespread massacres and enslavement during the Turkish conquests, however, the region’s Greeks survived and were allowed something of a cultural life, albeit as second-class citizens, for centuries — not least because they served as cash cows for their Muslim rulers through the imposition of the jizya tax.
But Greeks in Istanbul, as Constantinople is now called, have now tumbled from 200,000 as recently as 1914 to, officially, a mere 3,000 — and a Times correspondent who visited the city to interview some of the survivors, known as the Rum, reports that the true figure may be nearer to just one thousand.
The Times correspondents’ interview subjects did not describe a life as hard as that endured by some of their forebears, such as in 1821, when many of the city’s Greeks were massacred and the Patriarch of Constantinople hanged from the gate of his cathedral, or in 1955, when the security services organised violent pogroms against them in what POLITICO dubbed a “Turkish Kristallnacht”.
“Everyone is gone now,” said Lazari Kozmaoglu, the 75-year-old owner of a rare pork butcher’s shop….
Neither the interviewees, perhaps understandably, or their interviewer, perhaps less understandably, touched to any great extent on the reasons so many Greeks have fled their ancestral homeland in recent years — and, indeed, decades — but the mood against such minorities in the once strongly secular but now Islamist-led republic is souring.
The authorities have made it increasingly difficult for Orthodox Christians to receive a religious education for example, and some historic churches and monasteries have been demolished or repurposed as mosques, sometimes with little warning….
Infidel says
Just like non-muslims living in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh should flee to India, similarly, Byzantine Greeks living in Turkey should flee to Greece. I’m sure Athens would be happier w/ them than Afghan, Syrian or Pakis coming to Lesbos
helen mavronas says
how about if turks go back to their land in central asia???
jirtu says
Sending back the Turks to Central Asia would be the greatest gift to humanity in this millennium. Since their appearance in the Middle East a thousand years ago they have done nothing but spread massacres, plunder, racism, lawlessness, corruption, deception, destruction, aggression, and cruelty. These “attributes” seem to be embedded in their DNA as Erdogan’s popularity testifies and their “modern” history which since Ataturk has been mostly dictatorship and military rule.
Rob Porter says
jirtu, If the West were not so cowardly, it would expel from NATO and stop Turk citizen access to western Europe, and both place sanctions and boycotts on Turkey. Instead the West has gutless fools like Merkel, Macron and the now pathetic Boris Johnson, the only leaders with an ounce of sense re Turkey, Donald Trump and Viktor Orban. In respect of Muslim immigration the only E.U. countries with moral fibre are Hungary and Poland. Both had their fill of Islam, Hungary that was occupied by the Ottomans for about 140 years, and Poland that for about two century with Lithuania fought off the Ottomans.
Infidel says
About as likely as all muslims in the Indian subcontinent going back to central Asia
inquisitor says
most of the greeks of constantinople were prominent merchants until the nazi occupation in greece. they were then applied a massive tax that leaded most of the to forced labour from which many died untill the defeat of the germans. some then returned but had gone completeley mad from the camps and died soon after……they were from 200 to 300 thousants.
gravenimage says
Inquisitor, Turkey was never occupied by the Nazis, and Constantinople is not in Greece. The persecution and murder of Christians in Turkey has been at the hands of Muslims, not the Nazis.
jirtu says
Inquisitor, the tax, imposed in the early ’40s by Turkey was called “Wealth Tax”. It was intended to bankrupt the three minority-owned (Armenian, Greek, and Jewish) businesses. Not only was it harsh , the “wealth taxes” were to be paid almost instantly. Since most minority businesses didn’t have the cash, they sold their businesses and properties for a song. Those who couldn’t raise the money were sent to labor camps. Some died because of work conditions at the camps (the men were middle aged or older.) Those who survived and returned, suffered from mental problems. The program was initiated to remove non-Turks from the economy. It was successful.
gravenimage says
All grimly true, Jirtu. Then there were the pogroms against Greeks in Istanbul in the 1950s. These are all extentions of the Armenian Genocide (which actually targeted all Christians and other Infidels).
jirtu says
Despite Turkey’s continued vile behavior, America and most European states are friendly with Ankara. Italy, Spain, Germany are big trading partners of Turkey. A few days ago, Britain signed a huge trade deal with Turkey. Recent European and U.S. sanctions were so mild that describing them as sanctions is abusing the English language. Meanwhile, Erdogan and Putin are getting chummier every day. The Europeans are so divided and burdened by bureaucracy that it would take days to decide what color toilet paper to purchase for the EU headquarter washroom.
gravenimage says
Turkey is no ally of ours–and they are *not* “moderate”.
Rob Porter says
inquisitor, absolute nonsense! The Nazis occupied Greece, not Turkey and thus not Constantinople. The taxes that ruined Greek businesses were applied by the Ottoman Turk Muslims. The Turk’s genocide against Armenians was simultaneous conducted against Greeks and Assyrians.
GreekEmpress says
Seeing this article is like reading a retelling of my family history. My maternal ancestors were all from Anatolia. Not one left there -not one. And there won’t be any Byzantine Greeks left at all if madman Erdogan has his way. Armenians either.
gravenimage says
So sorry, GreekEmpress. Robert Spencer’s family fled Turkey, as well.
JMB says
Yes Greek Empress, very sad. I have known Greek Christians who have lived in Egypt, they were fortunate to be able to come to Australia when life became intolerable under Islam. I have other family connections (distant) who were Zoroastrian who were forced to flee Persia (Now Iran) to India because of Islam. We have in the past supported Christian medical missionaries (Drs & nurses), they have had to abandon their long established clinics all because of Islam. Now can someone tell me again about Islam being the religion of peace and tolerance?
Bill says
Islam is NOT the religion of peace. They are a religion of violence and destruction.
gravenimage says
JMB is being sarcastic, Bill.
J. P. Theo says
For 400 years the Ottoman Turks occupied Greece (together with Serbia for almost 500 years, and Hungary for a shorter time) The forced many Greek girls to become sex slaves in the Turkish Harems, they forced many Greek boys – usually as young as 7 to convert to Islam and become Janissaries in the Turkish armies. Greeks finally fought for and obtained their freedom from the Ottoman Turks, about 160 years ago. Many Greeks remained in Asia Minor (Anatolia or Turkey). Very few are left.
Islam again proves it’s violent, intolerant, supremacist true nature.
As Churchill said -“Islam in a man is like Rabies in a dog”.
Be aware – BEWARE.
gravenimage says
Yes–hideous.
And the Armenian Genocide may well have been the Muslim reaction to their being pressured to no longer enslave Christians.
God, I hate Islam.
gravenimage says
Turkey: Last of the Byzantine Greeks facing extinction under Islamic hardliner Erdogan
………………….
Grimly true.
And Christians also face extinction at the hands of Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and right in the birthplace of Christianity in Bethlehem.
Mojdeh says
Greek Christians are forced to leave the Turkey. Tayyep Ordogan is anti Christ one of them. He wants get half of world under useless Islam . Sufi in Turkey has been also called Kafer. Sufism at least is very spiritual with special dances as well. Rumi was an example of great teacher and every house in the world has at least one copy of Rumi in thier language. Rumi was translated in over 40 languages.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
Rumi
gravenimage says
Alas, Sufis do not reject violent Jihad.
As for Rumi, he was very un-Islamic.
Infidel says
Most famous example of this – Timur the lame, or Tamerlane – the Turkic conqueror who massacred entire cities that opposed him, and declared his campaigns jihadist campaigns when conducted against infidels, like Georgians, Russians, Indians and Chinese
gravenimage says
Yep.
tim gallagher says
In Muslim dominated countries, Christians and other non-Muslims are treated very badly and forced to leave, yet, stupidly and ,to me, amazingly, our non-Muslim countries keep inviting Muslims to come and live in our countries. All the tolerance is always only one way. Muslims treat non-Muslims like crap and yet our societies keep being nice and welcoming to Muslims. To me, it makes no sense whatsoever and I hope that one day, not too far off, our societies will wake up and say, like Hungary and those other VIsegrad bloc countries, no, no Muslims will be allowed into our countries. If you are Muslim then stay in your Muslim country with your fellow barbaric Muslims. I’m fed up with this one way tolerance.
OLD GUY says
Erdogan the dictator of Turkey is turning Turkey in to and islamic hell hole for non-islamic people. It’s time for the rest of the world to stand up against islam and the muslim world. There is no reason for modern man to tolerate the atrocities that islam brings to society. If you live in a country that elects it’s leaders you need to vote out those who favor doing business and allowing islam into your country.