Originally published in GPN, Genocide Prevention Now, Special Issue 5, Winter 2011

In early January members of the Greek Orthodox Church celebrated one of the most important dates in their calendar, the Feast of Epiphany, with young men competing to retrieve crosses thrown by priests into rivers and seas around the world in Istanbul, where the spiritual head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew, throws a cross into the Golden Horn.

The Church in Istanbul traces its origins back through a continuous line of patriarchs to the 4th Century.

BBC News notes, however, that the local Greek community has dwindled to fewer than 3,000, and there are  real fears for its survival.

Greeks have lived in the territory of modern-day Turkey for more than 3,000 years. Up to the last years of the Ottoman Empire, they still numbered nearly two million, dominating much of the commerce. But after the violent birth of the Turkish republic in 1923, most of those living along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts were expelled in a matter of days through an agreed population exchange with Greece.

Istanbul’s Greek community was exempted, and until the mid-1950s there were still nearly 70,000.  In September 1955, a night which some compare to Krystalnacht in Germany in 1938 against the Jews, mobs attacked shops and churches, raping Greek women and forcibly circumcising priests. Hostility towards the Turkish Greeks continued for many years. Thousands have left Istanbul.

Another difficulty for the community has been the official regulations, which have resulted in thousands of buildings once belonging to Greeks or Greek foundations being confiscated by the state.

In addition, Turkey for years has been a particular challenge for the Church, because the Turkish state has not recognised Patriarch Bartholomew as head of the world’s Orthodox Christians. Without legal status, he has been unable to manage church property effectively and other properties that once belonged to the Church. Nor has he been able to train new priests – the seminary that once did so remains shut down, and finding recruits in the shrinking Greek community is hard.

BBC says the situation is now beginning to improve, probably because Turkey has sought European Union membership, but it may be too late for a viable Greek community to reorganize.

Source: Excerpted from Head, Jonathan (January 7, 2011). Greek community in Turkey fears for its survival.  BBC News.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12133163