Christians in Turkey | DW Documentary

24 comments

1. see the difference between Christian majority countries versus Muslim majority countries.

2. all things were created including all human race in the world by Allah.
   For God , in Hindi language bhagawan or devtha . Similarly all other world languages there is some words .In Arabic, Allah is nothing but God.
   If you were to write a spritual book in Arabic ,then u will have to refer to god as Allah. So , Allah is not like buddha or Jesus or any other creations.
   Like that , muslim means "the slave of God". This is also Arabic word. Those who worship creator, are called as muslims.
   The muslims worship the God who created u and me and all.
   So , the first man Adam was also a muslim.Because, He worshipped God. Muslim is a religious identity name.
   We believe in god. U should believe in god. To know this , read and analyse the Qur'an without any pre- judgement and bias

3. History of Ottamans 16:

   ( In 1430) As soon as he had restored order in Thessalonica, Murad-II turned his army
   loose on Epiros and Albania. The city of Ioannina had for long been the
   capital of the northern part of the old Despotate of Epiros…… When the citizens of Ioannina heard of the approach of
   Sinan Pasha, beglerbeg of Rumelia, and his army they sent him a delegation
   led by their bishop to offer their surrender on certain conditions…… Their offer was gladly
   accepted. Ioannina capitulated to the Turks on 9 October 1430. But its
   church and its people were protected in advance by a charter written in
   Greek and known as the Decree of Sinan Pasha. The governor-general
   
   therein promised that no one would lose his freedom, no children would be
   abducted, no churches would be destroyed or turned into mosques. The metropolitan bishop was to retain all his prerogatives and privileges; the
   nobles would keep their estates. All rights of heredity, property and
   personal possessions were to be guaranteed. All reasonable requests were to
   be granted. Many copies of the decree were produced. It was the charter of
   the freedom of the Greeks of Ioannina under Ottoman rule for centuries to
   come. It was also good propaganda for the tolerance of the Turkish
   conquerors.
   ( Such was the treatment granted by the law of Islam for cities that surrendered. It is duty of muslims to protect and respect those who surrendered.)

   Book: The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261-1453
   Author: Donald M.
   Nicol
   Edition: second, 1993
   Reprinted:1999
   Page:350

4. History of Ottoman 15 :

   Generosity of Osmania

   " During the fifteenth century, however, they( Ottoman) probably didn't bear as heavily upon the native Christian peoples as has commonly been assumed. Christians were allowed to continue in their faith and preserve most of their local customs and practices with little hindrance or oppression so long as they paid poll-tax or kharaj levied on non-Muslims….. In many areas, nevertheless, the native population subjected by Turks may not have found them much worse than their previous masters ( Christian rulers including Constantine -XI).

   Book: The Papacy and
   the Levant
   (1204-1571)
   Volume 2
   Author: Kenneth M.
   Setton
   Edition: 1978
   Page: 48

   After the takeover of Constantinople – the last portion of Byzantine Empire – , the Osmania Turks destroyed Byzantine's Last dynasty Palaeologi but not Byzantine civilization which survived as such in the Ottaman state.
   Byzantine civilization refers the whole social fabric of Orthodox Christianity, Greco-Roman law, Greek literature and various fundamental political and economic institution.
   All these were allowed and encouraged through the " Millet" system ( independent Court of law) introduced by Osmania dynasty for non-Muslims ie Christians.
   Ottoman Turks never introduced basic changes ie banning of dress code, language, rituals, religious ceremony, prayers into the life of the Balkans and most of the today's Turkey.

   This is the essence of the
   book: The Papacy and
   the Levant.
   ( 1204-1571)
   Volume – 2
   Author: Kenneth M.
   Setton
   Page: 42 ( second
   row)
   Edition: 1978

   Please note:
   Muslims never followed Magna Carta civilization. So no chance to cheat the non-Muslims in the name of rule of law, delaying justice and blaming the judiciary system, freedom of expression, pseudo democracy….. But Muslims ruled by their own rules. That is ' rule of principle ' . So that the Millet system was possible.
   All these generosity is because the muslim Turks never hated Christian religion, their race, their language…..
   "Don't hate" is the "rule of principle" of Islam.

5. History of Ottoman – 11

   Religious freedom under ottaman Sultan:

   " While Christendom burned its heretics, under the Crescent everyone was permitted to live in his own faith……While in other countries a rigid class structure held the common people down, on the Bosporus the meanest slave could hope, through force of character and good fortune, to rise to the highest offices in the state….In accordance with the system prevailing among the master nations, the heads of the Christian churches were endowed with jurisdiction and police power over those of their own faith and at the same time were held responsible for the taxes of their flock. Thus, within the Ottoman state the Orthodox under their patriarch formed a subservient Greek state, in which the bishops were able to rule arbitrarily over their communities and even their priests. Without becoming dangerous to the Turkish masters, the high clergy often managed to feather their own nests very nicely…..There is no doubt that the rights granted the patriarch were very considerable and amounted to the establishment of a Christian state within the state…… There was one restriction, however. The Christians were forbidden to build new churches, to repair old ones, or to make use of church bells. In Rumelia during the early days of Turkish rule church services were announced solely by the hollow sound of a wooden gong (Greek simantron, whence Turkish ;>amandlra, Romanian geamandura or toaca). This prescription does not seem so very harsh when we consider that the English church forbade the Catholics to use bells until the nineteenth century and that Protestants are still forbidden to make use of them in Spain and Chile.

   Book Mehmed the conqueror and his time
   Author Franz Babinger
   Edited: William C Hickman
   Translator: Ralph Manheim
   Edition: 1978
   Page: 435,436

6. The history of Ottamans – 7;

   Orthodox under Murad-II:

   ( Around 1443 AD under Ottoman Sultan Murad-II period )
   " On all sides ( Pope's allies at Northen Balkan, sharing Ottoman border) there were
   uprisings against the Ottoman overlords and soon the Turkish garrisons
   were driven from a number of important castles and fortresses.
   But it should not be supposed that the Balkan peoples joined in common revolt against Ottoman rule. By prompt payment of the ' harac', the tribute always imposed on them, the Christians of the conquered countries purchase the right to live unmolested in their faith and to maintain their customs and many of their institutions…….Those who paid their taxes fully and punctually enjoyed a life scarcely different from that of pre-Ottoman ( Roman or Byzantine)
   times.
   Such, at least, was the case in the fifteenth century. It was only much later that bribery, extortion, blackmail, and usury made their appearance in the Ottoman provinces, that the officials, often spurred by insatiable greed, began to suck the blood of the population, and that all life was poisoned by deception and distrust. But this was in the decadence of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;conditions were very different under Murad II, who, as we have noted, was respected even among his adversaries for his sense of justice.Thus it was not so much the people who rebelled against the new masters ( muslims) as the would-be rulers, who feared for their lands as well as for those privileges and liberties which they still retained."

   Book: Mehmed the
   Conqueror
   and his time
   Author: Franz
   Babinger
   Edited: William C
   Hickman
   Translator: Ralph
   Manheim
   Edition: 1959
   Page: 26,27

7. The history of Ottamans – 5 ;

   ( i ). " The main reason for Ottaman success , however , was the development of stable and permanent institutions of government that transformed a tribal polity into a workable state ".

   ( ii ) " The Ottamans utilized all human resources in their emirate and quickly learned skills in bureaucracy and diplomacy …….. They also did not slaughter every Christian in their path ; rather , they encouraged the Christian inhabitants of the countryside and the towns to join them . Islamic law and tradition declared that enemies who surrendered on demand should be treated with tolerance .
   ( iii ). " The Christians of Bithynia were obliged to pay the ' harac ' , or capitation tax , for the privilege of being tolerated , but this was no more burdensome than the taxes they had paid to the Byzantine government , which had neglected their interests . Once they had made the decision to surrender or defect , the Byzantine population resigned to their fate ". " Some Christians converted to Islam upon joining the Ottamans ; however, this was not demanded . Many local Christians even participated in Ottaman raids against Byzantium ". BOOK : Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire . AUTHOR : Gabor Agoston and Bruce Masters . Edition : 2009 page -109 .
   "Existing sources , such as the 25th century Ottoman census records , suggest that the earliest converts to Islam in the Balkans came from the ranks of the Balkan nobility and military elite that could supply the Ottomans with the manpower ………….
   BOOK : Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire . AUTHOR : Gabor Agoston and Bruce Masters . Edition : 2009 page -146 .

8. The history of Ottamans – 4:

   At the time , the Ottoman Turks arrived in the 13 th century ,there was still a large population of Greeks and Armenians in the Asia Minor , especially in the towns and relation between Greeks and Turks were closer and inter-marriages more common than usually assumed . Greeks worked in the Seljuk administration in high officies , Turkish troops were often hired by the Byzantine Emperors , and fleeing Turkish rulers sought refuge in Byzantium "
   " The early Ottaman society was complex and included members of numerous religion and ethnicity " . " In short , it was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire ruled by the Osman dynasty from circa 1300 until its demise in World War – I ".
   BOOK : Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire . AUTHOR : Gabor Agoston and Bruce Masters . Edition : 2009 page – XXV , XXVi

9. History of Ottoman:21

   Greeks Relationship with Latin and Turk;

   The Byzantine population( Greek) were memories of a catastrophic event that had taken place some two hundred years before(ie. in 1204, western attack on Constantinople)…..
   The bitter memories did not fade over the years. Western travellers of the
   fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were often shocked at the hostility
   that they encountered from the Byzantine population. A Dominican
   monk living in Pera complained that some Byzantines would break a
   cup out of which a Latin had drunk rather than risk contamination by
   using it again. One Burgundian traveller, Bertrandon de la Brocquière,
   experienced that hostility at first hand. When crossing the Bosporus
   from Skoutari to Pera in 1432, the Byzantines who rowed him accorded
   him great respect at first because they thought that he was a Turk. When
   they found out that he was, in fact, a Latin, they decided to put up the
   fare and became very aggressive when their passenger refused to pay up. There probably would have been a fight, had a Genoese shoemaker who
   lived near the gate in Pera’s walls not come to Bertrandon’s aid. The
   
   aggrieved traveller concluded his tale with this sombre caveat:

   " I mention this as a warning to travellers who, like me, may have
   anything to do with the Greeks. All those with whom I have had any concerns have only made me more suspicious, for I have found more
   probity in the Turks. These people love not the Christians of the
   
   Roman persuasion."

   Book: The End of Byzantium
   Author: Jonathan Harris
   Edition: 2010
   Page:61-63

10. History of Ottoman:19

    In reality, whatever the ideological or religious differences between
    Christian Byzantine Greeks and Muslim Turks, they were not necessarily natural enemies. On the contrary, on an everyday basis Greeks
    and Turks interacted quite peaceably for much of the first half of the fifteenth century. They were neighbours and trading partners and
    noticeably adopted aspects of each other’s customs and language. Although they might disagree over whether Jesus Christ was God
    incarnate or simply a prophet…. What created
    the conflict were the policies pursued by those in power, whether ambitious Ottoman sultans who sought to promote themselves from leaders
    of a tribe to rulers of an empire, or meddlesome Byzantine emperors
    who believed that they could improve their precarious position by ill-judged stratagems. Indeed, political ambition rather than dogma lay behind most late medieval wars. Otherwise there would have been no Hundred Years War (1337–1453) between the Christian
    English and the equally Christian French and no clash between the
    Muslim Ottomans and their co-religionists and fellow Turks, the Karamanids.

    Book: THE End of Byzantium
    Author: Jonathan Harris
    Edition: 2010
    Page – xxi

11. History of Ottoman:18

    Turks in 13th century–

    During the later thirteenth and early
    fourteenth centuries, the Aydin Turks had established their emirate on
    the Aegean coast around the cities of Smyrna and Ephesus. The Karaman Turks had captured the Seljuk capital of Konya in 1316 and
    made it the centre of an emirate that dominated much of southern Asia Minor. The Ottomans under their leaders Osman I (r.c.1299–1324)
    and his son Orhan I (r.1324–1362) had moved into the north-western
    region of Asia Minor and made their capital in the city of Bursa.

    All
    these newly arrived tribes were Muslim but they had extended a broad
    tolerance to the many Christians under their rule and thus ensured that
    
    there was very little opposition to their takeover.

    Book: The End of Byzantium
    Author Jonathan Harris
    Edition: 2010
    Page: 3,4

12. History of Ottoman :17

    Greeks and Turks are dependent, friends —-

    Commercial relations aside, the sheer proximity in which the
    Byzantines and Ottoman Turks lived ensured that they had little choice
    but to work with each other, and they frequently did. Before 1394 the Byzantine emperor had been a vassal of the Ottoman sultan, obliged to
    provide him with a contingent of troops for his army, but there were
    also Turkish mercenaries serving in the Byzantine army. They seem to
    have gone by the name of 'Ianitzaroi', possibly a corruption of the
    Turkish word, janissary. There were also Byzantines in the service of the Ottomans such as 'Taronites', who was the personal physician of Emir
    Orhan, and numerous scribes and administrators.

    Outside the cities,
    
    Byzantine Greeks and Turks were neighbours, often on very friendly
    terms. When in 1403 Bayezid’s son Suleyman hoped to buy peace with Venice, he promised the Italian republic a stretch of territory on the
    Greek mainland opposite its island colony of Negroponte. The Turks
    who lived in the area were most unhappy about being handed over to Venetian rule in this way and they were supported in their refusal to
    give up their land by the Greeks who lived nearby.

    The constant everyday interaction between Byzantines and Turks
    meant that they were bound to end up adopting aspects of each others’
    cultures. It was said that the Byzantines had learned the art of horse
    archery from the Turks, who had long been adept at loosing off volleys
    of arrows while galloping at high speed. By the same token, it is clear
    that the Turks had learned about ships and sea craft from the Byzantines, and hence Turkish vocabulary in this area was largely
    
    derived from Greek.

    In general it would seem that although the
    Ottomans were the stronger military power, in cultural terms they
    received more from the Byzantines than vice versa. The Ottoman
    
    capital of Adrianople was a populous commercial centre and it was
    starting to be adorned with grand mosques, yet it still had something
    of the frontier town about it with many of its Turkish inhabitants still
    living in tents. Constantinople was still a cultural and commercial metropolis to which the Turks looked enviously, and the Byzantine
    tradition in architecture and the decorative arts was to have a profound
    impact on Ottoman material culture.In view of the closeness with which Byzantine and Ottoman
    
    societies functioned and interacted, it is hardly surprising that there
    were some Byzantines who were unhappy about any confrontation
    with the Turks. These were after all people with whom they dealt on an
    everyday basis, and needless hostilities would interrupt commercial
    relations.

    An outright Turkish victory in any war would spell disaster
    for Byzantine lives and property. Manuel II soon discovered this point
    
    of view on the occasions when he openly defied the Turkish sultan.
    During the 1380s when he was in Thessalonica he became deeply frustrated with what he considered to be the lack of patriotism among the inhabitants, complaining angrily in a letter:
    
    " They have to be convinced… that it is nobler and far less shameful to
    suffer willingly the lot of slaves for the sake of their own freedom than,
    after having become slaves, to try and gain the rights of free men."

    Manuel did not succeed in persuading them, however, and in 1387
    
    they voluntarily opened their gates to the Turks. The same thing happened during Bayezid’s siege of Constantinople in 1394–1402. As
    the years went by and there was no sign of relief, more and more voices
    were raised in favour of surrender. After all, if Bayezid took
    Constantinople by storm, the city and everything in it would be given
    over to plunder. If, on the other hand, some negotiated settlement were
    reached whereby the city was handed over peacefully to the sultan, then
    its inhabitants might be able to keep their property and fortunes under
    the new regime. The defeat of the crusade at Nicopolis in 1396 was the
    last straw. People started to escape from the beleaguered city by night,
    letting themselves down by ropes from the Land Walls and giving
    
    themselves up to the Turks…….

    Book: The End of Byzantium.
    Author: Jonathan Harris
    Edition:
    Page: 56-58

13. Though Muslims called by different names ( Arabs, Asians, Ottamans, moguls ……. ) They never colonized any part of world.
    They mingled with all races without any discriminatory approaches. So they developed the territories they ruled in all aspects. They never plundered, looted, exploitated . They didn't take away the wealth of the people to their homeland like racist Europeans. Instead they made their territories flourish. Colonization means looting and plundering one people's wealth to their own country ( western white Christian world )
    The Christian Romans took away grains from Egypt. Egypt supplied most grains to Christian Romans before 650 AD . That means whites survived because of Egypt coloured people. Jesus was also one of the coloured people.
    Because of native peoples revolution , Christian Romans lost their control in North Africa and Palestine generally Asia . So that Romans became poor. Because europe does not have enough natural wealth. Even today western white Christian dependent on coloured people's countries for oil, gas and ores.

14. Faire un test ADN et vous aurez des surprises en Turquie 😮

15. Where is human right activists?

16. It s interesting to see similarities and differences between syriac and greek orthodox christian tradition! The monastery is sooo beautiful and hope this energetic and passionate nun achieve her goals. My grandparents lived in Turkey and fled to greece early 20th century. It was touching visiting the places they lived and felt very wellcomed by turkish people i met.

17. I've been to Turkey, it's way more diverse than how mainstream media portrays it.

18. Is is so sad that muslims christians and jews are worshipping same god but still cant get along with each other😢

    20:01 it is a very good thing that some people can live in peace

19. We love you❤, Our Brothers & Sisters God bless you. From Eritrean Orthodox Christian.

20. Turkey has a long tradition of the persecution of Christians. Not just genocide against Armenian, Greek and Syriac Orthodox Christians last century (and the prior century), but continued persecution today. Recently allowing Haiga Sophia to be reopened as a mosque, but denying the original owners the right to worship there, is but one example. Turkey banned and closed Christian private schools, they closed monasteries and in particular the Halki Seminary. There is a provision in Turkish law that allows the state to seize any Chrisian property where there is no Deacon, Priest or Bishop. In closing Halki in 1970, the Turks were attempting to legally sieze more property from the Cnurch, even though their joke of a Constitution provides for religious freedoms (with caveats and addendums). Currently, the clergy are trained outside of Turkey at seminaries in Thessaloniki, Boston (Holy Cross), and elsewhere, then come back to man their post so the Turks can't outright seize more property. They have essentially created a Christian ghetto in "Istanbul" and Christians are treated as a second class of citizens. In 2022, the Turkish High Court decided to register disputed property of the Greek Orthodox Church in the name of the Public Treasury rather than grant ownership of the property outright to the Church. The GOC had attempted to resolve property rights based on Turkish laws at the appellate level, which was looking good, until the Turkish state kicked it to their High Court to rule in favor of continued state control. Prayers for my Adelphi….and Blessed Nativity.

    BTW, there are places in Haiga Sophia off from the main sanctuary where sound carries….when I first visited Haiga Sophia I sang a prayer to the Holy Spirit in Koine Greek, moved to another location to continue another part of the prayer, and had a good chuckle as security guards were running around looking for the source of this ancient Prayer that would have resonated throughout the Church for over a millennium. IC XC NIKA!

21. God be with you and your family's. You did so well for being in Exile ! Merry Christmas !

22. God bless you ❤

23. I don't have any respect of this German channel's news. Always lies, exaggeration and false news on their news relating to Türkiye!

    Liers, genociders, racists of Germans and humanity..! What a dilemma!!!

24. We will never forget the Armenian Genocide 1915