Erdogan is playing multiculturalism. Turkey opens first church in 100 years
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the opening of the temple of the Assyrian Church of the East in honor of St. Ephrem in Constantinople (Istanbul).
The temple was built with money from the Turkish government, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The Church of St. Ephraim is intended for the Assyrian community in Constantinople and includes, in addition to the temple itself, which can accommodate 700 people, service premises, places for ceremonies, a cultural center and the residence of the metropolitan. The Turkish government allocated money for the construction of the structure.
The consecration of the temple was attended by leaders of other Christian denominations of Turkey, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Commenting on the event on his microblog, Erdogan recalled the work he did as prime minister and then president regarding the property of religious communities and the places of registration of this property:
“We do not neglect the reconstruction and construction of places of worship for religious minorities…. Although discrimination against our Muslim brothers in the Balkans and Western Thrace [Greece] continues to increase, we have never taken such action against groups of different beliefs or allowed it to happen. We never allow occasional disagreements with certain countries in our bilateral relations to affect our citizens.”
It is expected that the first service in the Church of St. Ephraim of the Assyrian Church of the East will take place on October 15. And this temple will be the first church built in Turkey after 1923, when the nationalist regime of the Young Turks, which came to power, committed real genocide against the country’s ethnic and religious minorities, including the Assyrians.
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