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May 9, 2006

Occupied Byzantium (Turkey): Completing the Greek Christian genocide

Turkey, the Muslim nation which has occupied Asia Minor since its conquest of Byzantium in the mid 15th century, has told the United States and Europe to go to hell with their ideas about human rights and religious freedom. The Turkish occupation authorities once again refused permission to the Constantinople Patriarch to re-open a seminary, reported the Russian web newspaper, Newsru. The European Union, the US Congress, and President George W. Bush had called on Turkey to allow the seminary to reopen.

During a recent meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Sofia, Abdulla Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, cited restrictions that ostensibly apply to all religious schools, and said that it was necessary to uphold ``the principle of the Turkish state's secular order.'' Gul added that Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew refused a `compromise' whereby the seminary could open if it became a department of Istanbul University.

The seminary on the island of Halki in the Mediterranean Sea, which dates to the 11th century when the land prospered under Byzantine control, was outlawed and closed by the Turkish government in the 1970s. It was formerly the only seminary in the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Orthodox Church. Archbishop Meliton said since the closing of the seminary, ``the Greek Orthodox Church is threatened with extinction.'' Nine of its 16 bishops are already at least 75 years old, while the remaining are in their 60s.

``Opening the seminary would be a positive sign of fundamental change in Turkey,'' said Wilfred Martens, leader of the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament. ``Religious freedom is one of those fundamental rights which Turkey will have to accept if it wishes to become a member of the European Union.''

Martens added that Turkey's persistent refusal to re-open the seminary bears witness to the ``deep problem with religious freedom in Turkey.''

`Deep' is a gross understatement. Since the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in the mid 15th century and put most of the Christian inhabitants to death, the violent cult of the Warlord Mohammed has led to incessant genocide against Christians in Asia Minor and in the Balkans. This lasted right up until the 1920s when the remaining Greeks and Armenians of Asian Minor were slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands.

In 1955, the besieged Greek Orthodox community in Turkey numbered only about 100,000. Today, it's down to 3,000. In September 1955, in apparent retaliation for a bomb that went off at the Turkish consulate in Greek city of Thessalonica, the Turks back at home let loose a bloodbath that led to the destruction of about 2,500 houses and about 4,000 stores belonging to Greek residents in Asia Minor. In 1963-64, about 50,000 Greeks were deported from Constantinople (Istanbul). About 73 out of 83 Greek Orthodox churches in that occupied city were sacked, and many of them burned by Muslims.

The world stood silent as these atrocities raged. The Turkish occupation of Asian Minor continues today. But just as many believed Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were invincible, so also we need not accept that Asia Minor and the rest of the Middle East, which were primarily Christian before the Warlord Mohammed appeared in the 7th century, will much longer remain under the sway of his totalitarian cult.

The time has come to take a stand, and make a decision. Catherine the Great, the Russian Empress, planned to liberate Constantinople at the end of the 18th century with the help of an American naval captain --- a man named John Paul Jones. He fought in her service and scored several impressive victories against the Turks on the Black Sea, but he died before the plans could be fully realized. It's time that the dream of Catherine the Great and John Paul Jones is realized.

Russia and America must once again put aside their differences, join forces, and liberate Constantinople.

Posted by at May 9, 2006 4:05 PM

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Posted by: Varangian_Guard at December 10, 2008 3:46 AM

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