Turkey Gives Go-Ahead For First New Church In Century

Turkey's Islamic-rooted government has authorised the building of the
first church in the country in nearly a century, officials said
Saturday.

The church is for the tiny Syriac community in Turkey and will be
built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of
Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic
churches.

The announcement came after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met
Turkey's religious leaders in Istanbul on Friday and said no faith
that has lived in the country could be regarded as foreign.

"It is the first (new church) since the creation of the republic (in
1923)," a government source told AFP.

"Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new
church has been built until now," he added.

Turkey, which once had large Christian minorities, is now 99 percent
Muslim and critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
have accused it of trying to Islamicise its officially secular
society.

However, as part of its bid to join the European Union, Ankara has
made efforts to widen minority rights and return some seized property
as well as restore churches, monasteries and synagogues.

Christians now make up less than 100,000 of Turkey's population of 76
million and are sometimes the target of attacks.

But the prime minister insisted that the ruling AK Party "does not
discriminate between our citizens... the principle of equal citizenship
continues to be our characteristic trait," he added.

He condemned recent attacks on mosques in Europe and urged the
religious leaders he met with Friday to "speak up together against
Islamophobia".

The country's ancient Syriac minority, which now numbers less than
20,000, live mostly in the southeast and tend to be either affiliated
to the Orthodox or Catholic churches.

But their numbers have swollen in recent years by thousands of Syriac
refugees first forced out of Iraq by war and sectarian violence and
later by others fleeing the fighting in Syria.

During his visit to Turkey in November, Pope Francis denounced what he
termed the current wave of "Christianophobia" in the Middle East,
accusing Islamist radicals of "hunting" Christians.

The various Syriac churches are among the oldest surviving Christian
denominations, and use Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, in their
services.
The new Istanbul church will be built on land given by the local
council and paid for by a Syriac group, the government spokesman said.