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Trouble In Turkey; Fear Prevails After Priest's Murder

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  • Trouble In Turkey; Fear Prevails After Priest's Murder

    TROUBLE IN TURKEY; FEAR PREVAILS AFTER PRIEST'S MURDER
    by Annette Grossbongardt
    Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

    Spiegel Online, Germany
    12. April 2006

    () Christians are a vanishing minority in predominately Muslim
    Turkey. The murder of a priest in February shows that the situation
    has become precarious -- both for Catholics and for Turkey's EU bid.;
    http:/www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0 ,1518,411043,00.html

    Father Pierre Brunissen is deeply immersed in thought as he bumps along
    in the night bus along the Black Sea coast from Samsun to Trabzon in
    northern Turkey. There is, on this trip, little for the priest to be
    happy about. He is hurrying to a Christian congregation in Trabzon --
    a city of 250,000 Muslims -- which boasts barely a dozen members. And
    he is needed because the former priest in Trabzon, Father Andrea
    Santoro, was murdered in his church.

    It's a church which is now casting about for a caretaker. In the
    vicarage, which gives off a distinct air of neglect, a small plastic
    tree left over from Christmas gathers dust in the visiting room.

    Because no one volunteered to replace the murdered priest, the
    75-year-old Father Pierre was instructed to travel the 250 kilometers
    by bus from Samsun to Trabzon once a month to look after things in
    the city's tiny congregation.

    The Catholic Santa Maria Church was founded by Capuchin monks
    150 years ago. Santoro had the church restored, and now colorful
    ornaments and images of the saints once again grace the building's
    walls and ceilings. But in early February, Santoro was shot dead by
    two gunshots while he was praying in the last pew of the church. The
    first shot penetrated his lung and the second went straight to his
    heart. In the dark wood of the pew, a splintered mark made by one
    of the bullets can still be seen. On this day, Father Pierre will
    celebrate the first mass in the church since Santoro's murder, but
    the church bells remain silent -- there is nobody there to ring them.

    0,1020,610038,00.jpg right

    Christians are a tiny, tolerated minority in Turkey, a country which
    is 99 percent Muslim, and the Catholic priest is wary of being too
    conspicuous. He even advises the members of his congregation in
    Samsun not to wear any visible symbols of their faith, such as a
    cross dangling on the outside of a blouse or shirt.

    "Murdered priests aren't good for Trabzon"

    "We have nothing against Christians," says Volkan Canalioglu, the mayor
    of Trabzon. "On the contrary, we respect other religions; after all,
    Turkey is home to many cultures." A giant Turkish flag hangs in his
    office, and he is a member of the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet
    Halk Partisi or CHP) founded by Kemal Atatuerk, which promotes the
    secular legacy of the founder of the modern Turkish state. "You will
    find no one in Trabzon who approves of this horrible deed."

    The vice president of the local soccer team, Trabzonspor, is also upset
    about the incident. "We were playing a match in Ankara when the murder
    happened. We won the match, but we couldn't really enjoy our victory,"
    says Hasim Sayitoglu. "Headlines about murdered priests aren't good
    for Trabzon or for us." Sayitoglu grew up not far from the Santa
    Maria Church, although he says he doesn't know a single Christian.

    Trabzon, an ancient trading city that now hopes to develop a
    thriving local tourist industry, places little value on its Byzantine
    heritage. There are many churches and monasteries dating from centuries
    of Byzantine Christian rule, although most have since been converted
    into mosques. During the great population exchange between Turkey and
    Greece in 1923, almost 1.5 million Orthodox Christians were expelled
    from Asia Minor and replaced by 356,000 Muslims from Greece. As a
    result of the mass murder and expulsion of the Armenians in World
    War I, the country had already lost almost a million Christians. The
    result was an almost entirely Muslim state.

    Turkey is still home to about 100,000 Christians. Their status is
    one of the barometers being used to determine Turkey's suitability
    for European Union membership, making the murder of Father Santoro
    especially inconvenient for the administration in Ankara, which is
    rooted in Islam but is doing its utmost to portray Turkey as tolerant
    and liberal-minded. "The gunshots were not just aimed at Santoro,
    but also at the atmosphere of stability Turkey enjoys today," says
    Interior Minister Abduelkadir Aksu. Foreign Minister Abdullah Guel
    describes the murder as an "isolated case."

    But isolated cases have been on the rise in Turkey.

    Churches have few rights

    Recently a young man attacked a monk and a priest with a kebab knife
    in a Catholic monastery in Mersin, a small city on the Mediterranean.

    "We are no longer safe here," says the Vicar Apostolic for Anatolia,
    Luigi Padovese. "Until now, Mersin was one of our most peaceful
    congregations." Nowadays, the bishop never travels without bodyguards,
    a precaution the interior ministry has practically forced him to
    accept.

    Shortly after the murder in Trabzon, nationalist youth attacked a
    Catholic priest in Izmir. They grabbed him by the neck and shouted:
    "We will kill you!" and "Allahu akbar! God is great!" The priest
    barely made it to safety. After the incident, police officers were
    routinely posted in front of the church in Izmir, a measure that had
    already been taken in other cities.

    Turkey's Christian minorities had hoped that reforms introduced by
    the administration of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan -- as part of
    its effort to gain EU membership -- would not just lead to a few
    improvements, but to complete religious freedom. Although Christians
    are permitted to practice their faith freely, in many cases their
    churches have practically no rights and often have no claim to the
    property they stand on.

    When Bishop Padovese requested work permits for two church employees
    in Trabzon, the interior ministry denied his request, arguing that
    because a Catholic Church doesn't exist in Turkey, it cannot file
    requests. "That's the paradox," says Padovese, "We are here, but
    legally we don't exist." It was not until recently that pastors, who
    were previously registered as consular employees, have been allowed
    to register as members of their own profession.

    "The basic level of anti-Christian sentiment has increased," says
    Felix Koerner, a German Jesuit whom the Vatican sent to Ankara to
    encourage a Christian-Islamic dialogue. Turkey's efforts to enter the
    EU have triggered nationalist counter-reactions, says Koerner. "Even
    in educated circles, people are saying that Turkish unity and national
    sovereignty are in danger."

    Risking physical attack

    Conspiracy theories have likewise been making the rounds in Turkey
    for some time, producing a climate in which Christians distributing
    the New Testament risk being physically attacked. In a sermon against
    missionaries it distributed last year, the state religious authority
    rails against what it calls "modern crusades," claiming that their
    goal is to "turn our young people away from the Islamic faith."

    Priests have been accused of seducing women in their churches or
    encouraging young people to engage in sinful acts. Father Pierre
    has already won four court cases for libel against defendants
    who had spread rumors that he routinely watches porno films with
    young people. To protect himself, he now maintains the best possible
    relations with the local Turkish hierarchy, routinely paying visits to
    the chief of police, the governor and the mufti. "It helps," he says.

    Sixteen-year-old Oguz, Andrea Santoros's suspected murderer, is
    currently being held under high security at the Trabzon prison. Four
    bodyguards have been assigned to the boy to prevent him from harming
    himself or being silenced by others. He has refused to make any
    statements.

    Was Oguz truly trying to avenge the humiliation of Muslims who saw
    the Danish cartoon controversy as an affront to their prophet, as
    his family claims? Or was the murder the work of the Mafia, which
    was incensed over the church's practice of giving shelter to Russian
    prostitutes? Or perhaps the boy, apparently a loner, was a willing
    tool for nationalist extremists.

    According to his family, Oguz, a high-school student, had recently
    become "very religious." "He prayed five times a day," says his brother
    Alpaznar. His father, who runs a dental laboratory in Trabzon, claims
    that he first heard about the Muhammad cartoons from his son. "He
    was very upset, but I told him that it was none of his concern."

    The father, pale and bald, is constantly jumping up from his chair,
    nervously rubbing his hands. He doesn't have a photo of his son,
    holding up a newspaper clipping instead. "I feel bad for the boy,"
    he says, sounding almost as if "the boy" weren't his own child.

    Closed for a month

    Oguz apparently spent most of his time in an Internet cafe in a
    small shopping center in downtown Trabzon. "He was especially fond of
    strategy games," says the owner, Senol Sahin, adding that the boy had
    recently become very aggressive. "He would send me e-mails in which he
    used vile language. I even hit him once for doing it." Sahin believes
    the boy is "easily influenced."

    On the morning of the murder, Oguz apparently came home and asked for
    directions to the Santa Maria Church. Then, according to his father,
    he left the house with his younger brother. The murderer must have
    known his way around, because the churchyard one passes through to
    reach the church lies in the middle of a group of buildings, and is
    in full view of half a dozen apartments, many displaying the Turkish
    flag in their windows.

    The priest's young Italian housekeeper, startled by the shots, claims
    that she saw a silhouette, and that it was that of a man, not a boy.

    The church remained closed for one month. Meanwhile, Bishop Padovese
    has sent two lay assistants and a visiting Polish pastor to Trabzon,
    so that the church can be kept open at least two or three times a
    week for the few Christians who still live in Trabzon.
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