Attacked Turkish Pastor Joins in Memorials for Slain Christians

Christian Martyr in Turkey

Istanbul church leader says he has known hostility from Muslims nearly all his life.

ISTANBUL, April 18 (CDN) — After a memorial service for three Christians who were murdered in Malatya, Turkey five years ago today, an Istanbul pastor who was attacked over Easter weekend said he’s experienced hostility from Muslims nearly all his life.

Semir Serkek, 58, pastor of Grace Church in Istanbul’s Bahcelievler district, said he personally knew Turkish converts to Christianity Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske, who were brutally murdered by five young men in the southeastern city of Malatya on April 18, 2007.

“I looked at their fate with some envy, because they were young and I am old, but they left – I have gone through many things,” he said. “But they were so young, so young.”

On a day when memorial services were held for the three slain Christians in Malatya, Izmir and Elazig as well as the ones Serkek attended at both the Kozyatag Cultural Center and Gedikpasha Church in Istanbul, the pastor said the physical violence on him the evening (April 7) before Easter Sunday surprised him.

“I’ve been verbally abused for being a Christian many times, but this was the first time I was hit, so this was surprising and made me sad,” Serkek said.

Serkek was alone at Grace Church finishing preparations for the next day’s Easter celebration when at around 9 p.m. he heard frantic pounding at the door, he said. Opening it, he found four young men in their late teens who claimed they had questions and demanded to enter.

The men, whom Serkek said appeared to be about 18 years old, were agitated, and when he refused to let them in they used insulting language, he said. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t recite the Islamic testimony of faith.

“This made me uneasy, and I told them that this was a church and they should come back in the morning,” Serkek told Compass. “‘This is a Muslim neighborhood, what business does a church have here?’ they asked me, and told me again and again that if I didn’t accept the final religion I would die.”

Finally one of the men kicked Serkek in the chest. The blow threw the pastor down the entrance steps to the ground. The Muslims ran away laughing, Serkek said.

Born to a Syriac Christian background family in the southeastern city of Mardin, Serkek said that while the violence surprised him, he has known verbal abuse since childhood and especially since he started serving God and began openly sharing his faith 35 years ago.

“To be honest, I’ve experienced these things from my childhood,” Serkek said. “I know these things closely. I’m from Mardin, and I’m a Syriac Christian. We are serving actively, and we have to spread the Word to be a source of blessing. This is what we are called to do, to bless. This is how God will use us, and I believe this with all my heart.”

Two days after the attack, Turkish Director of Religious Affairs Mehmet Gormez called Serkek from Denmark, where he was traveling, to express his disappointment about the attack on him, according to local press.

“I don’t want to be ungrateful, but I also told him that these men are trained in the mosques,” Serkek said. “At least 10 times they repeated their demand that I say the kelime-i sahadet [Islamic testimony of faith]. They pressured me. They told me I will die. They had violence in them. They didn’t even know me. They used insulting language. Their goal was to provoke me.”

Serkek said he is convinced the four Muslims who attacked him did not pass by his church site by accident or impulsively. He said the attack was planned, and that if police catch them he would like to know who put them up to it.

On Sunday (April 15), 17 activists from a non-profit organization known as Dur De, which fights racism and hate-crimes, came to Grace Church in a show of support to Serkek. Earlier last week, a delegation from a Muslim non-profit called Damla Nur Dursun also visited Serkek and brought him flowers.

On Easter weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul issued official statements wishing the country’s Christians a Happy Easter. Gul stated that “regardless of ethnic origins, language, faith and political views, everyone is an equal citizen in Turkey and equal owners of the Turkish state,” according to the Anatolian Agency. Erdogan wished Christians peace and well-being.

The attack on Serkek, however, came as a bitter reminder to the nation’s Christian community that Turkey has a long way to go in giving equal standing to non-Muslims.

Along with the memorial services around Turkey today, Geske’s family published an announcement inTaraf newspaper.

“While remembering with deep love and respect my husband, our father and our brothers, we pray and invite our beloved country’s people and government to a new level of tolerance,” the announcement read. “A new tolerance that brings peace and alleviates pain from this country where thousands have been killed in the name of religion, race, political opinion and differences of tradition. We invite every child and every citizen to choose life instead of death, good instead of evil and blessing instead of curse.”

Aydin, Yuksel and Geske worked for Zirve Publishing Co. distributing Christian material, as did Serkek for many years. The pastor said that he himself was nearly lynched in the northeastern town of Artvin for handing out Christian materials.

Because of Turkey’s long-term and systematic limitations on non-Muslim communities, the United States Commission on International and Religious Freedom recommended that Turkey be designated as a “Country of Particular Concern” this year. There are an estimated 4,500 Christian converts in Turkey.



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Turkey’s Religious Freedom Record Slides

Pastor in Black Sea region’s bastion of nationalism feels the hate; slow justice in Malatya.

ISTANBUL, April 9 (CDN) — Sentiment against Christians in Turkey has persisted long enough for a U.S. religious rights monitor to recommend it as a “Country of Particular Concern,” and pastor Orhan Picaklar knows such anti-Christian hostility first-hand.


Picaklar, of Agape Church in Samsun, lives in the Black Sea region, a bastion of Turkey’s unique Islamic-imbued nationalism, where Christians live under increasing pressure. He has seen his building attacked and his family and congregation threatened.


“Just as it is difficult to belong to Jesus all over the world, unfortunately it is the same in Samsun, if not worse,” Picaklar said. “We have been here for 10 years, and people here still treat us like cursed enemies. Our families feel anxiety. On the hour my wife calls me and I have to say, ‘There’s no problem,’ as if to say, ‘I’m still alive.’”


Picaklar’s son received death threats on Facebook last September. A man in his early 20s caused minor damage to Picaklar’s church building last month, the latest in a series of aggressions that has led the church to file charges after long declining to do so.


Police called Picaklar in the middle of the night on March 4 to tell him to come to the police station because a young man had disturbed neighbors near the church building. Neighbors heard the suspect, Eren Cilce, yelling, “Corrupt, perverted Christians, we are going to bring this church down on your heads, get lost,” among other threats, Picaklar said.


The church was housing visitors who had travelled from Romania, he said. Visitors, especially foreigners, attract unwanted attention from local nationalist groups, he added.


The assailant’s threat was nothing new. In June a man broke into the church building and painted threats on the wall. When authorities captured the perpetrator, he asked Picaklar for forgiveness. The church didn’t press charges.


Though Picaklar’s congregation has never pressed charges for previous hate crimes, last month they decided to formally complain.


“We are always forgiving, but since the threats are continuing in aggression and we are innocent, we decided as a congregation for the first time to press charges,” he said.


A court hearing will likely take place in May, and Picaklar said he expects the culprit will be fined. Police informed him that Cilce was drunk, and Picaklar said he hopes the court doesn’t dismiss the case on that basis. The congregation does not have a lawyer.


Of the 50 members of his church, only a dozen have made the brave move to change the religion status on their identification cards from Muslim to Christian, or at least to leave it blank, Picaklar said.


Many in Turkey see Christians as corrupt elements of the West out to shake the integrity of Turkey and Islam; this portrayal has been propagated to some extent in media and literature, including school textbooks. Though constitutionally Turks are allowed to share their faith with others, the word “missionary” carries negative connotations, including the mistaken notion of undermining Turkish sovereignty. In recent years a series of assassinations of Christians in Turkey has brought to the fore deep-rooted prejudices against Christians.


Country of Particular Concern
Such indiscretions are one reason the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last month recommended that Turkey be designated as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC),” among Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, for religious freedom violations.


The report cited the government for “systematic and egregious limitations” on religious freedom, stating that Turkey, “in the name of secularism, has long imposed burdensome regulations and denied full legal status to religious groups, violating the religious freedom rights of all religious communities.”


Restrictions that deny non-Muslim communities the rights to train clergy, offer religious education and own and maintain places of worship have led to their decline and in some cases their disappearance, the report stated. The Greek Orthodox community of Turkey has dwindled to around 2,500 from tens of thousands early in the 20th century.


The report called some of the positive steps the government has made in the area of property, education and religious dress as “ad hoc” that have not led to systematic constitutional and legal changes.


Religious restrictions in Turkey have not increased in the last year, but the report stated that continued legal discrimination against non-Muslim groups was a dangerous trend.


Turkish officials called USCIRF’s recommendation to the U.S. Department of State “null and void.” Turkey’s parliament is in the process of drafting a new constitution, and a special parliamentary committee has met with members of Turkey’s non-Muslim communities to hear from them how the new constitution could better represent their communities.


A researcher on religious freedom in Turkey, Mine Yildirim of ABO Academy in Finland, told Compass that USCIRF’s portrayal of religious freedom in Turkey is correct but that the country did not deserve to be designated as a CPC.


“I think it was an unfair attestation, and though they wanted to give a strong message to Turkey, it backfired because the ministry said it was null and void and they wouldn’t take it into account at all,” said Yildirim, a Turkish Christian.


Yildirim acknowledged that religious freedom violations against Protestants had increased in 2011, noting that with few exceptions they are still unable to establish places of worship. Most of Turkey’s churches function as civil associations and can therefore meet in buildings.


Malatya, Five Years LaterFive years after the murder of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske in Malatya, no verdict has been issued due to Turkey’s slow judiciary. This has not helped Turkey’s religious rights image.


The Malatya Third Criminal Court is making some progress in shedding light on a shadowy group that was allegedly behind the murders, experts said, but the process has been painfully slow.


A new indictment due last month against the alleged “masterminds” of the murders is still not ready, prosecution lawyers said, setting back hopes for progress at hearings this week.


“Nothing is going to happen,” plaintiff lawyer Erdal Dogan said before today’s court hearing. “We are still waiting for the new indictment.”


The court decided to re-convene on June 18.


The April 2007 murders are believed to be part of a conspiracy to overthrow the current pro-Islamic government.


Prosecuting lawyers and members of the local Protestant community still hope that the new indictment due ahead of the June 18 hearing will be a step forward in bringing the perpetrators to justice.


“I believe the indictment will uncover many details we are not aware of,” Umut Sahin, coordinator of the Legal Committee of the Association of Turkish Protestant Churches (TEK), told Compass. “I think it might surprise us.”


Sahin said he believed the delay of the new indictment was due to its complexity and length and not any unwillingness to advance the case.


Since 2008 there have not been similar bloody attacks against Protestants, but according to TEK, 2011 saw a spike in hate crimes against the association’s 4,500 members.


Commenting on the slow proceedings of the Malatya trial, researcher Yildirim of the ABO Academy said that the judiciary and Turkish “problems of rule and law” were partially to blame, but that the forthcoming new indictment would be a positive step.


“For Malatya, if you put aside the slowness, now finally a new indictment is being prepared to find the instigators,” she said. “So this is a positive effect. It’s not what we expect from justice, but even though it is slow, this is a positive outcome of the trial.”



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Church Head in Unprecedented Meeting with Turkish MPs

Greek Orthodox patriarch expresses concerns for Christians in Turkey.

ISTANBUL, February 27 (CDN) — In an unprecedented meeting, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey last week expressed his concerns and hopes for the country’s Christian minority to members of the Turkish Parliament.


The visit took place in Ankara after Speaker of the Parliament Cemil Cicek invited Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to meet with a parliamentary commission responsible for revising the country’s constitution. Christians in Turkey are hoping that the new constitution will guarantee them the ability to worship, educate their communities and conduct their religious activities with the same rights as their Muslim-majority counterparts.


The Feb. 20 meeting is a sign that progress is being made, but more progress is needed, said the patriarch, who as “archbishop of Constantinople” is “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion.


“It is the first official invitation to non-Muslim minorities in Republican history,” Bartholomew told reporters after the meeting. “We don’t want to be second-class citizens. Unfortunately, there have been injustices in the past. These are all slowly being rectified. A new Turkey is being born.”


The invitation is one of several actions the government has taken that Bartholomew has welcomed. In August, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Christian and Jewish groups that had their properties seized in a 1936 government directive and a subsequent 1974 court order could apply to have them returned.


In a statement released shortly after the decree was issued, Bartholomew said the new order represented “the restoration of an injustice.”


Problems with the government, however, remain. In 1971, the Orthodox-run Halki Seminary was closed because of a court order dealing with the regulation of private universities. Under the court order, all private schools, including the seminary, had to be run under government supervision.


In response, the Patriarchate closed the seminary, rather than have it fall under government control. Bartholomew brought up this issue at the meeting with Parliament officials.


Also critical to Bartholomew and other Turkish Christians is the issue of what is known as “legal personality.” There is no method under Turkish law for a church group to establish itself as a legal entity. This limits a congregation’s ability to raise funds, transfer foundation deeds and own or, in some cases rent, land.


If minority religious groups do not already have foundation status, their only recourse is to apply to establish an association, which is routinely granted but not recognized as a “church” or “place of worship.” In contrast, the Turkish government runs a “Directorate for Religious Affairs” that funds and controls mosques and the training of Islamic clergy across the country.


In the closed-session meeting, Bartholomew expressed those concerns and then delivered an 18-page document outlining the Greek Patriarchate’s suggestions for the new constitution. The patriarch said he was extremely grateful for the meeting and left it “with hope.”


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