Turkey is a historic Greek homeland, the heartland of the Roman Empire in its Byzantine period. The Turks, however, have systematically practiced ethnic cleansing until there are almost no Greek Christians left in the country.
“The Greek Orthodox minority in Turkey faces the threat of disappearance,” by Abdullah Bozkurt, Nordic Monitor, March 11, 2024:
The Greek Orthodox minority in Turkey is on the brink of extinction, with the community’s population dwindling to just 1,500 people, primarily comprising elderly individuals. This stark decline contrasts sharply with a century ago when the community numbered 1.4 million.
The decline can be attributed to a combination of factors such as forced repatriation, asset seizures, sustained pressure, crackdowns, unfair discrimination, profiling, relentless negative campaigning and decades-long tensions between Ankara and Athens.
The alarm bell for the dire situation of the rapidly shrinking Greek Orthodox minority was sounded in a document circulated in January at the United Nations.
“This enormous population erosion happened because subsequent governances of Turkey throughout the 1923-2003 period, pursued a systematic policy of severe discriminatory measures to force the expatriation of the members of the [Greek orthodox] minority,” the document said.
The document, prepared by the Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans, a nongovernmental organization with special consultative status at the UN Economic and Social Council, reveals the serious challenges facing the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey.
The US State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom estimated that fewer than 2,500 Greek Orthodox Christians reside in Turkey. Whatever the actual number may be, the pattern is clear: The Greek Orthodox community is shrinking rapidly in predominantly Muslim Turkey and may soon face extinction.
The most severe blow to the Greek Orthodox minority occurred during a population exchange in 1923 as part of the Lausanne Treaty, which resulted in the exchange of approximately 1.2 million Christian Orthodox individuals from Turkey for nearly 400,000 Muslims from Greece.
According to the agreement, individuals residing in Istanbul and the Aegean Sea islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos) were exempted from the forced exchange. Their numbers totaled 135,000 at the time.
However, successive Turkish governments’ open and secret pressures on the remaining minority, at times amounting to violence and forced labor, further took a toll on the Greek Orthodox minority, slashing their numbers to merely 1,500 people as of today, according to the document….
Frank Anderson says
Passive surrender never leads to changes in a hateful, intolerant society. About half of Germany’s Jews believed they could live in Germany while the Nazis were beating them, stealing their property and killing them a few at a time. That led to the Holocaust. Islam has proclaimed ad conducted its war of intolerance for 1400 years. The delusion that Christians can live in peace surrounded by such evil is a special kind of “deliberate ignorance.”
Jack Reynolds says
GREECE’s Muslim population is only 2 percent. What do the Greeks know that CANADA, FRANCE, the UK, and SWEDEN Need to learn ???
Samer says
For the knowledge of Mr. Robert Spencer, the population exchange according to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 was based on a religious and not an ethnic basis, as most of the Christians who were deported to Greece were Turks who had converted to Christianity, and most of the Muslims who were deported from Greek lands to the Turkish state were Greeks who converted to Islam.
From The Other Side of Town says
In the earlier part of the 20th century the Turks also entered Greece and perpetrated their great evil there in the land of Greeks themselves. Historically, the Turks have shown themselves doers of cruel barbarianism. Thats how they do it.
GE says
The Turks won’t stop until every Greek and/or Armenian is eradicated from the country. Secret Nation—the Hidden Armenians of Turkey by Avedis Hodjian (2018) is an excellent account of how Armenians still in Turkey cope and survive.
Greece currently has 2% Muslim population, but if they’re not careful and forget their history, they will go the way of France, Germany, et.al.
Thrace has a 28% Muslim population , Rhadope 54.7%, and Xanthi 42.19%
And Athens Exarchia district is already a “ no-go”
zone. According to journalist and reporter Maria Polizoidou, it is unknown how many of the 3,000 immigrants there have ties to ISIS and/or Al Quaeda. There is also an absence of political will to get to the bottom of an alliance between anarchists
(Hellenic version of Antifa) and illegal immigrants, so the future of other neighborhoods is in jeopardy.
Rioda says
Extinction of Orthodox Christians was always orchestrated by Vatican and Roman Catholic Church. The 4th Crusade was the turning point for the Byzantine.
I hope West will realize and recognize its own contributions.
Mick says
On January 27, 2024, two days after the Biden administration again urged Congress to greenlight F-16 sales to Turkey, Erdoğan said at a public meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), “Our struggle did not end with expelling the enemy [Greeks] from our lands and throwing them into the sea from Izmir.” It was a provocative statement given the massacre at Smyrna, today’s Izmir, killed up to 100,000 and, according to scholars, amounted to genocide against Anatolia’s Greek Christians.
Rajput says
In each and every Islamic Republic once there was not a single Muslim living there. But as soon as the Muslims entered as traders (Indonesia) or invaders (India) the non Muslim population there started “dying” rapidly till not one of the original people is alive or tolerated today.
But what an audacity of the Muslims to expect brotherly treatment as soon as they land on any shore and utter the word “Asylum”! What an irony! They left an Islamic republic but now want to ruin a peaceful Christian continent or country!
When will the host countries, especially EU, USA and the “badly butchered” (PARTITIONED) India know that with each and every Muslim one Non Muslim (Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist) has already “died” or is close to death or conversion? The demography in the Non Muslim country is changing rapidly, and for worse!
When will even one Hindu return to his ancestral home in Pakistan where in one year (1947) 15 million of them were forced out violently? And when will Sweden wake up to check the rapidly swelling Muslim numbers there?
Please look at the increasing Muslim population in the USA and do show the courage to foresee Partition there or civil war in pools of blood eventually.
The free world urgently needs to unite, as during World War 2, in order to check, and reverse, the increasing Muslim numbers. Since “Sharia Law” in Afghanistan is no different from “Mein Kampf” in Germany both need to be abolished on war footing in civilised peaceful societies.
We need to be asking, “Why is there even one Islamic Republic on planet earth in which a degraded Non Muslim has to fear for his life and daughter?