The Surviving Greek Population in Turkey

From Zaman

Being in Turkey, cultural and religious diversity is definitely an issue worth exploring. The colorful mix of mosques, synagogues and churches, often found side-by-side on a single street, probably fascinates many visitors -- and it still says much about the multitude of different communities that have shaped life in the region over the past centuries.

This week, Today's Zaman wants to have a look at the Turkish Greek community in particular. Along with the Armenians and Jews, they form one of the three minorities officially recognized by today's Turkish government.
But how did it actually come to that? The Greek minority in Turkey is a remnant of a once much larger community -- the so-named Greek Orthodox Church, a Christian denomination which today comprises five administrative jurisdictions: the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (now İstanbul), the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Church of Cyprus and the Church of Greece. Within the larger communion of Orthodox churches, which all emerged in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, these five churches share a common cultural tradition and conduct their liturgy in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament.

During the time of the Ottoman Empire, the Greek Orthodox Christians were recognized as a separate "millet," a kind of legally protected religious minority group in the empire's governmental system. They were free to run their own religious, cultural and educational institutions and thus soon came to play a significant role in the social, political and economic life of the empire. Especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, actually a period of apparent decline and loss of power for the Ottomans, the Greeks were sought after for their administrative, technical and financial skills. The Phanariotes especially, a class of wealthy Greeks of Byzantine aristocratic origin who lived in the Phanar (now Fener) district of Constantinople, became increasingly powerful as merchants, bankers and diplomats and went on to exercise great influence in the administration of the Ottoman Empire's Balkan domains in particular. It is said that a good 1,700 Greeks filled some of the highest offices of the Ottoman state at that time.

The leader of the Greek community within the empire officially became the ecumenical patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, which was moved to the Fener district in 1586, to the Church of St. George. In fact, at that time the sultan regarded the ecumenical patriarch as the leader of all Orthodox people, Greeks or not, within the empire and thus, it had, indeed, considerable financial and political influence. Today, the patriarchate complex includes the authorization offices, the patriarchate library, the financial offices and the public enterprises of the patriarchate and the Cathedral Church of St. George. The church is definitely worth visiting. It is especially famous for its priceless artifacts and relics, which include the patriarchal throne, believed to date from the fifth century; three rare mosaic icons; a fragment of the Pillar of the Flagellation to which Jesus was tied and whipped; and the coffins of three saints.

Still, the Fener district is surely one of the most fruitful places for those keen on discovering the Greek Orthodox past and present in Turkey. The Greek High School for Boys on the top of Fener hill, for instance, has always been an important educational institution to educate young Greeks for Ottoman bureaucracy and orthodox clergy as well. The Yoakimyon High School for Girls and Marasli Greek Elementary School next to the patriarchate can also be found in the district. Further on you will come across a couple of smaller, more or less well-preserved churches, and you can still find a few of the typical, small Greek single-family houses, recognizable by their finely decorated facades.

Indeed, Greek life was flourishing under Ottoman rule, and it was not only restricted to İstanbul. Great numbers of Greeks also lived in Thrace and in Asia Minor, around the Mediterranean shore in particular. All together they formed an estimated 2.5 million at the end of the empire.

However, something was about to change. Resentment between the empire and the Greeks had never been uncommon and increased noticeably. The patriarch couldn't encourage projects of Greek renaissance and dreams of former Byzantine nobility in the face of the Ottoman Empire's increasing loss of power at the end of the 20th century.

Already apparent in the late 19th century, political instability, dire economic conditions and continuing ethnic tensions prompted the emigration of many Greeks to other countries. Thus, by the time the agreement for the so-called population exchange was signed between the governments of Greece and Turkey in 1923 to end the Greco-Turkish War and to constitute the borders of the newly founded republic under the Treaty of Lausanne, many Greeks had already fled the country. However, the treaty included further exchanges and the expulsion of about 500,000 Turks from Greece and about 1,500,000 Greeks from Asia Minor and eastern Thrace to Greece. An estimated 200,000 Greeks located in İstanbul and eastern Thrace were permitted to stay.

Experience Turkish-Greek history in Kayaköy

Still, these events are a very complicated chapter in Turkish-Greek relations and they were surely linked to much suffering -- on both sides. Those, however, who want to dig a bit deeper into the whole matter may travel to a small place named Kayaköy, located a good 10 kilometers from Fethiye on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. A ghost town and museum village today, its ruins still tell the story of its former mainly Greek inhabitants, who had to leave the place in the course of these historic events. Prepare yourself with the novel “Birds without Wings,” written by Louis de Berniéres in 2004. The fascinating novel tells the fictive story of Kayaköy based on very well-researched and sensitively prepared historical background facts.

Today, according to a report on religious minorities in Turkey prepared by the Turkish Foreign Ministry in December 2008, there are around 3,000-4,000 Greeks left in Turkey today, the majority of whom reside in İstanbul, as well as on the two islands at the western entrance to the Bosporus, Gökçeada and Bozcaada (“Imbros” and “Tenedos” in Greek language), and on the Princes' Islands -- the places which had been excluded at that time from the population exchange. All in all, the community runs some 108 churches, 90 of which are open for worship, and currently has 15 elementary schools and six high schools in use, all of which are located in İstanbul.