Hagia Sophia Diaries 5

Today, President Erdogan of Turkey made a tour of Hagia Sophia. Last week, Hagia Sophia was transferred from the Ministry of Culture to the Ministry of Religion. Its doors were closed to the public and the process of transforming the Great Church began.

One thing that Greek Orthodox Christians can take pride in is our reaction. We responded with protests and by contacting governments, institutions, and elected officials. We did not riot, we did not kill anyone, or engage in any sort of violence despite the blasphemous actions undertaken by the Turkish Government. We behaved like Christians.

Assuming that nothing changes from now until Friday and Hagia Sophia serves as a Mosque. Turkey will have won the battle, but not the war. Turkey will have lost the last remnants of a reputation that was carefully built up by Mustafa Kemal and his successors throughout the twentieth century. Turkey can never again claim to be a secular state.

The modern Turkish State was built on genocide. Kemal built the Turkish Republic over the corpses of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians. The Turks have forgotten that their victories were achieved through the active support of Great Britain, Italy, and France who armed Kemal’s armies in Anatolia while an embargo was imposed on the Greek Army at the time.

Throughout the twentieth century the Turks were quite successful at public relations. They built a false image of a Muslim country that was secular and democratic. Few people other than some diehard Turkophiles in America and Europe took seriously the notion that Turkey was a democracy. Everyone (including Turkey’s critics) believed that Turkey was a secular country.

Was Turkey ever really a secular country? Outwardly, Turkey was a secular country because religion was separate from the state. Men and women dressed and looked like westerners. Under the surface however Islamism never really went away. For example, during the second world war, the “ghiavhors” (infidels) including Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were the recipients of a heavy tax that the government knew they could not pay. Those unable to pay were shipped off to concentration camps in Anatolia from which most never returned.

Before the outbreak of the anti Greek pogroms of 1955 (which also targeted Armenians and Jews) Christian homes were labelled with crosses so the population would know their targets. The pogroms were primarily anti-Christian a fact that proves that secularism never penetrated the soul of the Turkish nation. During the 1950’s Prime Minister Adnan Menderes flirted with the Islamic establishment and as a result of his Islamic sympathies and authoritarian nature was executed following the Turkish Coup of 1960.

The Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 likewise demonstrated that Islam still had a hold on Turkish society. The conversion of Greek and Armenian Churches in occupied Cyprus into Mosques is proof that secularism in Turkey existed only at the official level. The conversion of Hagia Sophia may be the demise of the final vestige of secularism that existed in Turkey.

President Erdogan has brought negative attention on Turkey. This attention is on top of the negative attention that Turkey received because of Ankara’s tolerance of/and support for the Islamic State. The conversion of Hagia Sophia may come to haunt the new Turkish Sultan.