A declining Christian population in Turkey is directly attributable to the persecution of Christians, according to victims of the crackdown.
Speaking at a European Parliament session on religious freedom, victims of religious persecution in Turkey explained how the persecution they endured led to a fall in the Christian population from 20% to less than 2% over the course of a century.
The victims brought attention to the crimes done against Christian minority by the Turkish government and segments of society, said ADF International, the human rights organization that organized the event this week in conjunction with European Conservatives and Reformists.
Mark Smith, a Christian missionary who spent more than a decade in Turkey but was eventually removed in 2020, was one of the witnesses at a Brussels seminar on “Freedom of Religion in Türkiye” on Wednesday.
“We have a deep affection for Turkey and want to contribute to the welfare of its people. We pose no danger to Turkey or the Turkish way of life “The words of Smith were put into print.
Mark and his wife pastored a Turkish-speaking Evangelical congregation for ten years before being expelled from Turkey for “actions against Turkish state security.”
Open Doors, a religious freedom organization, reports that since the year 2020, the Turkish government has removed at least 60 foreign Christian missionaries and their families, and that Christians in Turkey are under “great pressure from extremely strong — and expanding” religious nationalism.
Dr. Georgia du Plessis, legal officer for ADF International in Brussels, said, “Christians and other religious minority are unable to enjoy their right to freedom of religion.”
Plessis further by saying that “Christian missionaries are unable to return to the nation they call home, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church has not been permitted to educate clergy for 50 years, and holy sites are being defiled without action being taken by the government.”
Bert-Jan Ruissen, a member of the European Parliament, has remarked that Turkey has “restrictive government regulations on religious practice for all religious minorities other than non-Sunni Muslims.”
“We also notice an upsurge in vandalism and violence towards religious minorities,” stated Ruissen from ECR Group.
He went on to say, “This demands our entire attention because it adds to a hostile climate in which religious groups feel more vulnerable.”
The European Parliament’s Report on Turkey in 2022 voiced sadness over the “continually narrowing space” for religious and ethnic minorities to “function freely in Turkey” and criticized “the mistreatment of religious and ethnic minorities.”
According to a recent study by Open Doors, “the government continues to target even foreign Christians in its borders, along with the foreign wives of Turkish nationals.”
However, it adds that any Muslim who decides to follow Jesus faces tremendous pressure from their family and communities, who typically demand the convert return to Islam, despite the fact that it is not legally unlawful for Muslims to convert to Christianity.
“They have to pretend to be someone else and conceal their faith in certain cases. Christians in Turkey, even those who have not converted from Islam, face several legal and procedural hurdles if they want to live their faith openly.”
The U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide demanded an investigation into allegations that Turkish security authorities promised an ultranationalist “anything he wanted” in exchange for the murder of church leaders last month.
Ultranationalist Tolgahan A. allegedly told Vedat Serin, leader of the Salvation Church in the eastern city of Malatya, that members of Turkey’s Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit offered him “whatever he wanted” if he killed Serin and two other Christian leaders, former pastor Tim Stone and Pastor Ihsan zbek, chair of Kurtuluş Churches Association, CSW said in a statement in August.
Ahval News said that the guy, who was supposedly involved with the Nationalist Movement Party, was given a rifle and dispatched to the church with a buddy, along with the addresses and images of Serin and the others. They peered in, spotted a kid playing on a computer, and promptly departed.
The Ottoman Turks perpetrated genocide against Christian Armenians in 1915, however the Turkish government still denies this.
Statistics from Turkey itself indicate that almost all of the country’s population identifies as Muslim. Practicing a religion other than Islam is made more difficult by the government, despite the fact that the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Discrimination, stigmatization, and violence are commonplace in the country because of the hatred that exists against Christians and Jews.
In July of 2020, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reversed the 1934 decision to convert the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque by reverting it to its original usage as a church.
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