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The
current Greek population in Turkey is estimated at fewer than 2,000.
But this population decline was not due to natural causes;
the Greek
community has become nearly extinct due to many state-sponsored attacks
and pressure.
The largest attacks took place during the last years
of the Ottoman Empire with pogroms and discrimination continuing until
the present day.
In 2007, the International Association of
Genocide Scholars (IAGS) announced that "the Ottoman campaign against
Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a
genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian
Greeks."
The destruction of Greek heritage and institutions,
including schools, continued after the Turkish republic was established
in 1923. One tool to annihilate non-Turkish communities including Greeks
was the so-called "Liberation Courts" that were set up in many Turkish
cities.
"These courts," writes the author Raffi Bedrosyan, "passed
arbitrary decisions that almost invariably resulted in death sentences,
with no defense or appeals allowed, and hangings carried out
immediately.
Among the victims of these courts were hundreds of Greek
teachers in the American and Greek schools of the region, prominent
community leaders, clergymen, and, tragically, entire members of the
Merzifon Greek high school football team, only because the team was
named Pontus Club, which was deemed sufficient reason to label them a
rebel terrorist organization."
Beginning on September 6, 1955,
everything belonging to Greeks in Istanbul -- homes, schools, offices,
businesses, churches, cemeteries − was attacked by Muslim Turks. This
pogrom greatly escalated Greek emigration from Turkey.
Nine years
later came the forced Greek expulsions. In 1964, as a result of tensions
over Cyprus, Turkey broke its agreement with Greece and prohibited all
commercial dealings by Greeks holding a Greek passport, leading thereby
to the departure of at least 45,000 Greeks.
In 1992 Helsinki Watch
noted that "the Greeks were not allowed to sell their houses or
property or to take money from their bank accounts." They were forced to
leave their birthplaces only with personal items weighing 20 kilos and
money amounting to 20 dollars. According to the researcher Salih
Erturan, the 1964 expulsion brought an end to Greeks of Istanbul.
Turkey's
Greek-speaking Orthodox citizens still cannot freely obtain education
in their institutions. The Halki seminary in Istanbul, or the
Theological School of Halki, the main theological school of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was closed down by the
Turkish state in 1971 and has not been reopened.
In addition, the
Turkish government does not recognize the "Ecumenical" status of the
Patriarch and Patriarchate, the spiritual center of the Eastern Orthodox
Church.
The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic of Yale Law School wrote in its legal analysis:
"Centuries
of Turkish discrimination against and persecution of the Patriarchate
and the Orthodox minority have been well documented... Turkey's
treatment of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox minority
violates its obligations under international human rights law."
The
Turkish government has also confiscated much of the real estate
belonging to Greek Orthodox Christians. "Many properties have been lost
over the past few decades, such as office buildings, orphanages and
other institutions," said Walter Flick, a religious expert with the
International Society for Human Rights in Germany, speaking to Deutsche
Welle (DW), Germany's international broadcaster.
The Buyuk Akinti
Burnu Greek primary school in the Arnavutkoy district of Istanbul, for
example, was restored and reopened in 2011 by the Bogazici University
Alumni Association (BUMED) − but not as a Greek school. It was reopened
as a Turkish kindergarten. The Greek primary school had been established
in 1902 when there were still sizeable Greek communities in what was
then called Constantinople, but was closed in 2009 due to a lack of
Greek students, reported the Turkish Dogan News Agency (DHA).
In
2016, only 19 Greek students graduated from three Greek schools in
Turkey, reported the weekly newspaper Agos. Yannis Demircioglu, the
principal of the Greek Zografyan High School, said that for the last 21
years, "the number of graduates has been ranging between 19 and 27 every
year."
In the 1926-27 school year, there were 58 schools
belonging to the Greek community in Turkey with 7213 students, 352
teachers and 222 administrators. Only five have survived, according to
Demircioglu.
"The real problem is that we have a limited number of
students," the former representative of Minority Foundations, Laki
Vingas, said.
"Founded in 1454, Fener Greek High School is one of
the oldest education institutions in Europe, but it has fewer than 50
students now. This troubles the administration. It is the same with
Zapyon and Zografyan... These schools are centuries old and the last
remaining Greek communal institutions.
"Their situation is
alarming. Istanbul was once a leading city in terms of education, not
only for local Greek culture there, but also for Greek communities in
all of Anatolia, Greece, and Balkans. This is a huge decline, and we are
struggling to keep the schools open. This is the most worrisome issue
for me."
From Greek Asia Minor to 21st Century Turkey with a Dying Greek Community
Before
Turks arrived in Asia Minor from Central Asia in the eleventh century,
the indigenous population of the region spoke and wrote in Greek and was
Greek Orthodox. Even the names of the region come from the Greek
language such as "Anatolia" (from the Greek "Anatole," "east" or
"sunrise") and "Asia Minor" (from the Greek "Mikra Asia," little Asia).
However,
the Greek cultural heritage in Turkey is on the verge of disappearing
forever. Turkey is 99.8% Muslim today. As the researcher Tania Karas
wrote, "One thousand, seven hundred Greeks left in a nation of 79
million... A century of oppression has nearly wiped out a religious
minority group with historic ties to the region."
The Republican
People's Party (CHP), which established the Turkish Republic in 1923 and
ruled until 1950, stated in its 1946 report on minorities that its aim
was to leave no Greek in Istanbul until the 500th anniversary of the
1453 "conquest" of Istanbul (1953).
It seems that their "dream" is about to come true.
