The Dictator and the Cry and Demand of the Greeks
June 7, 2022 By Theodore Karakostas

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool, FILE)
In light of the aggressive and irrational statements emanating from the Turkish dictator and warmonger Erdogan it is important to recount his record.

Erdogan has a history of political extremism and radicalism that goes back decades in Turkey. He was once a follower of Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan and was elected Mayor of Constantinople in March 1994. Upon being elected Mayor, Erdogan planned a visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Erdogan made reference to the gate at the Patriarchate which has been closed since Saint Gregory V was hanged from that gate on Orthodox Pascha 1821 following the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence. Erdogan announced that the Patriarchal gate would be opened just for him. After strong protests from Greece, Erdogan backed down, but his radicalism was very much in evidence then and we can see that his public statements and policies have not moderated since 1994.

Several years after being elected Mayor, Erdogan was forcibly removed as part of a crackdown by the secular military establishment who cited a radical poem written by Erdogan.

That crackdown came after the 1997 ‘silent coup’ which forced Erdogan’s aforementioned leader (Necmettin Erbakan) to resign as Prime Minister. The political party which Erdogan belonged to was ‘Refah’ and was replaced by the ‘Virtue’ party which was banned like its predecessor. Erdogan then formed the Justice and Development Party which he led to victory when he was elected Prime Minister in 2002. By 2014, Erdogan became President. Erdogan survived a coup in 2004 and yet another in 2016.

The former coup was led by the military leaders who followed the ideology and teachings of Mustafa Kemal the dictator who died in 1938 and who as General in 1922 presided over the burning of the city of Smyrna and the genocide of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians in Anatolia. In 2016, the coup was led by a rival Islamic faction which had taken over the military in the years following the failed 2004 coup. Having survived the upheavals in Turkish politics Erdogan was no longer restrained as Turkey’s leader.

In 2016, he purged all opposition in Turkey and became more powerful than ever.

Erdogan is an admirer of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet who conquered Constantinople in 1453. He has long made the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople a public celebration and made clear his intent to convert Saint Justinian’s Aghia Sophia cathedral into a Mosque. This was achieved during the summer of 2020. Erdogan’s recent statements comparing present day Greece to Byzantium in 1453 is disturbing. It is apparent that he sees himself as the successor to Sultan Mehmet and has made threatening statements that the Greeks have not learned from their history.

The Turkish President’s threats are not limited to the Greeks. In 2011, a Turkish flotilla from occupied Cyprus nearly started a war with Israel. Erdogan has insulted Israel on numerous occasions. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian plane over Syria that could have led to a third world war. When the Kurds of Syria were heroically fighting the Islamic State with their American allies, Erdogan threatened to invade Syria, which could have led to a shooting war between Turks and Americans. Over the past decade, Israel, Russia, and America have responded by appeasing Turkey.

In 2017, Erdogan’s bodyguards in Washington physically assaulted Armenian and Kurdish demonstrators. This led the late Senator John McCain to demand the expulsion of the Turkish Ambassador to Washington. For a brief time it seemed that Turkey’s Erdogan was attracting attention. Sadly – for Erdogan – attention has diminished as American and European officials turned their attention exclusively to Putin’s Russia.

Turkey’s threats against Greece continue. The Turkish President has attacked and insulted Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis in a very personal way that is beneath the dignity of a head of state. Turkey has assisted the aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia which has led to war crimes against Armenians and Turkey is again looking at invading Syria. Ankara has been using well known jihadists affiliated with Al Qaeda to fight against the Armenians in Artsakh and has been using them to support his allies in Libya, with whom he is seeking to divide the Mediterranean Sea.

It is problematic that the western media is not paying attention to the plight of Armenia, Greece, Cyprus, and the Kurds. The Erdogan government in Turkey is an international
menace and should be treated as such by the civilized world. On a visit to Athens in 2017, Erdogan demanded a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne. Turkey is now demanding the demilitarization of the Greek islands.

For Greece to agree to demilitarize would be to forfeit the islands as the regime in Ankara believes it is entitled to the islands that were ceded by the Ottoman Empire to the Italians in the early part of the twentieth century. That these islands are part of Greece as a result of international treaties is of no interest to the expansionist tyrant. Even worse, that the islands are populated exclusively by ethnic Greeks is of no concern to the dictator.

Erdogan did not come from nowhere. His movement is the latest incarnation of Turkish radicalism. His movement displaced the racist Kemalists who in turn overthrew the Young Turk movement. Despite certain ideological differences, all these movements are in full agreement in their attitudes toward Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Jews, and Arabs. The Turkish Republic refused to acknowledge the genocides of the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians. It also sponsored pogroms against Orthodox Greeks and at different times invaded Syria and Cyprus.

Before Erdogan defeated them, the Kemalists in Turkey made clear their loathing for Erdogan and his followers. Erdogan made very clear his contempt for them as well. Yet, despite the hatred that Erdogan and his followers have for the Kemalists, they do not hesitate to praise the extermination of the Christians by the Kemalists. The western powers are largely responsible for Turkey’s dysfunctional politics.

What the west has condemned in other countries, it has subsidized and fully supported in Turkey. Turkish politicians and officials that preceded Erdogan have made similar threats against Greece and Cyprus. Deranged and now deceased politicians such as Suleyman Demirel and Bulent Ecevit made threatening remarks about Greece and Cyprus, as did Erdogan’s mentor Necmettin Erbakan. Turkish officials have never hesitated in reminding the Greeks of the exterminations of 1922 even as they officially maintained an official policy of genocide denial.

Tansu Ciller who is still alive and was once Turkish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, openly endorsed the slaughter of Greek Cypriot protesters Tasos Isaac and Solomos Solomou in 1996. It should not be surprising then that the climate of racial and religious hatred that was cultivated in secular Turkey continues to prosper in Erdogan’s Turkey.

When have Turkish policies as they apply to Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, or Kurds ever been opposed in a serious way by the democracies?

The failure to oppose the secular Kemalists in Turkey was justified on the grounds that Turkey was a counterweight first against the Soviet Union, and then against Iran, Iraq, and Syria. What is the excuse for the West overlooking Ankara’s open support for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda? The authoritarian regime in Ankara today has been crushing all political dissent and is pushing for war against Greece. The governments of Greece and Cyprus, and all Greek communities worldwide should stand like the Greeks of 1940 to say ‘oxi!’ – no! to Erdogan and ‘oxi’ to American officials such as Victoria Nuland who are willing to sacrifice the Greek populations of the islands and Cyprus in order to appease the Turks in the name of long outdated and discredited views about Turkey being either an American ally or a strategic asset.

The regime in Turkey represents a threat not only to Greece and Cyprus, but to America and the world as well. America and the West must wash their hands of this dictator and his genocidal ambitions. The threat emanating from Ankara should not be ignored any longer. This is the cry and the demand of Greeks one hundred years after the burning of Smyrna.

THE NATIONAL HERALD

COLUMNISTS

Remembering Constantinople
May 28, 2022  By Theodore Karakostas

A map of the lower Golden Horn region of Constantinople, from Braun and Hogenberg, 1572, from Byzantium nunc Constantinopolis (Byzantium now called Constantinople). (Photo: Public Domain)

May 29 (technically, by the old calendar) is the anniversary of the fall of the Queen of Cities to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. On that day, the city founded by Saint Constantine for the glory of God and all its sacred churches and shrines suffered horrendously as its holy sites were profaned and its faithful were slaughtered or enslaved. Constantinople had been known as the “God-protected City” because so many pagan and infidel armies had been unable to conquer it. In 626 AD, the Avars tried and failed to conquer the City when the Emperor Heraclius was away fighting the Persians. It was said the most Holy Theotokos interceded to save the City in response to the all night vigils that pleaded for her miraculous intervention. Historians have said that even the armies of the enemy said that they saw a woman standing over the walls of Constantinople.

During the seventh and eighth centuries, the Arabs attempted to conquer the God-protected city and failed. During these attacks, the City was saved by the weapon known as ‘Greek Fire’, a chemical that was used to successfully destroy the ships of the aggressor armies. Constantinople was also known as the Heavenly City because of so many beautiful churches and the presence of so many sacred relics of the holy apostles and other saints. Aghia Sophia was completed in the year 537 AD under the auspices of the emperor, Saint Justinian. This was the Patriarchal Cathedral and the successor to previous temples which had been destroyed.

Constantinople was the center of Christendom and the greatest city in the world. It possessed manuscripts of the classical Greeks and the philosophers. It was a city that became the center of civilization and culture. During the eighth and ninth centuries, the Church of Constantinople converted the Slavs to Christianity. The conversion of Russia in the tenth century during the reign of Emperor Basil II was a remarkable achievement. The Empire that was known as the Eastern Roman Empire had many flaws, such as palace intrigue that brought about the violent removal of many emperors.

On the other hand, the emperor, who was known as ‘Viceroy of God and equal of the Apostles’ would fulfill many obligations as a Christian. Books have been written about the birth of institutions such as the hospital in the Eastern Roman Empire and the philanthropic activities undertaken by Church and State alike. During the reign of the great Saint Justinian, the concept of ‘symphonia’ or ‘synergy’ came about which defined Church-State relations. According to this theory, Church and State work together as partners. This tradition holds in the Greek Orthodox world today in which the Church and State in Greece are close. There remain certain challenges to this conception of Church and State in Greece today as a result of the activities of pro-European secularists.

Heresy was a major problem in the Empire of New Rome. Arianism, Nestorianism, and Iconoclasm were among the most notorious heresies that divided the Christians of New Rome. The Church always overcame these crises through the convening of an Ecumenical Council presided over by the Emperor. The great fathers of the Church gathered together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to clarify the dogmas of the Church. The heretics were always exposed and condemned.

In the year 1071 AD, the Empire suffered significant losses after the Battle of Manzikert, when much of Anatolia was lost and the process of Turkification and Islamicization was begun. The treachery by the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 destroyed Constantinople and deprived the City of its treasures and wealth. The Queen of the Cities would never recover and from then on the Empire declined as the Turks gradually seized more and more territory. At the end of the fourteenth century, Emperor Manuel Paleologos successfully defended Constantinople from the Ottomans. He would successfully defend Constantinople again in 1422.

The Emperor Manuel also travelled to England and France at the beginning of the fifteenth century to gain assistance from Europe. Such assistance would not be forthcoming. In 1439, his son John Paleologos paid the high price.of abandoning the Orthodox faith by agreeing to the Pope’s demands at the Council of Florence in Italy. The Greek Church had watched the Latins abandon Orthodoxy during the eleventh century as a result of serious errors such as inserting the filioque (the words “and the Son”) into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and insisting that the Pope had universal authority over the Church.

In 1439, the Ottoman Turks were at the gates of Constantinople. The Latins were attempting to humiliate the Greeks by forcing them to abandon the true faith of Christ. At such a moment, a giant emerged. The holy and pious monk Saint Mark of Ephesus travelled to Florence with the Emperor and the bishops. Saint Mark alone refused to accept the heretical union with Rome. Upon the return of the Greek delegation to Constantinople, the people of God revolted against the union and Saint Mark became a beloved hero who remains an example and inspiration for Orthodox Greeks up to the present day.

Emperor Constantine Dragases Paleologos was a tragic but heroic figure. He was known as a good and honest man, but he had the misfortune to come to the throne of Constantinople when the Empire had been nearly decimated. He was crowned in the Church of Saint Demetrios at Mistras where he had been serving when his brother John died. Because of the controversy over the Union of Florence, the Emperor was not crowned at Aghia Sophia, and at the beginning of April 1453, the Sultan Mehmet began his jihad and siege of the City.

The Emperor Constantine refused the Sultan’s offer of mercy to the people of the City if they surrendered. With the full support of the people, the Emperor led the defense which would last nearly two months. The Greeks had only five thousand men able to fight, and two thousand Italians from Venice and Genoa arrived to fight with the Greek – but it was much less than the Emperor had anticipated. The Ottoman Sultan had eighty thousand soldiers at his disposal. In addition, European treachery enabled the Sultan to purchase canons which the Turks used successfully to attack the Theodosian Walls which had protected the City on so many previous occasions.

Despite the bravery of the Emperor and the people of God, they could resist no more. Throughout the siege, the common people helped repair breaches in the walls and bringing food and water to the soldiers. In the end, the Ottoman Turks prevailed. The Emperor Constantine had been urged throughout the siege to flee the City and to go into exile. He refused such appeals by declaring, “as my City falls, I shall fall with it”. The Emperor Constantine Dragases Paleologos, defiant to the end, fell in front of the Romanus Gate on what we now call ‘Black Tuesday’,  May 29, 1453.

The Fall of Constantinople was accompanied by slaughter. The Sultan had warned the Greeks that if they resisted three days of pillage and destruction would follow the Ottoman victory. For three days, the Turks slaughtered the people of Constantinople or enslaved them. The liturgy in Aghia Sophia was interrupted and men, women, and children were tied in pairs and taken away to the slave markets. The holy chalice and the altar of Aghia Sophia were defiled. One of the Emperor’s loyal officials, George Sphrantzes, lamented and mourned the destruction of Aghia Sophia and the City in his memoirs.

With the martyrdom of the Emperor, it was demanded that Constantine be made a Saint of the Greek Orthodox Church. The pious Monk Georgios Scholarios (disciple of Saint Mark of Ephesus) became patriarch and agreed to adding Constantine to the list of saints. The new patriarch would take the ecclesiastical name of ‘Gennadios’ and would have the painful task of trying to lead the Church under the new realities that Greek Orthodoxy faced. The Church of Constantinople by a miracle of heaven would maintain the light of Christianity throughout the horrible centuries of Ottoman occupation.

The sacrifice of Emperor Constantine and the Church of Aghia Sophia would never be erased from the consciousness of Orthodox Greeks. Nationalist myths were told to children by their parents of the ‘marble Emperor’ – it was said the Emperor did not die but was saved by an Angel at the last moment and was turned to marble. It was believed that the day would come when the Angel would awaken him and bring him his sword and that he would reclaim his City. Tales were also told about the priest or priests (the stories vary) of Aghia Sophia. It was said that the priest or priests serving the liturgy in the Great Church were taken away into the walls of the Great Church at the last minute so that the infidels would not desecrate the holy gifts.

Even today, it is believed that Constantinople will be redeemed. It has been said that Saint Cosmas Aitalos (martyred by the Turks in 1779) predicted that Constantinople would be Greek again.

More recently, it has been said that Saint Paisios predicted that Constantinople will be redeemed. What is certain is that the Queen of the Cities will never be forgotten by Greek Orthodox Christians. Turkish rule ushered in centuries of brutal oppression.

Generations of boys were lost to the Janissaries, generations of girls to the harems, and generations of Greek Christians were lost to Islam. Legal courts in the Ottoman Empire favored Muslims and Churches were frequently seized. Christians were forced to dress distinctly from the Turks and had an inferior status.

In 1922, the dream of the Greeks to liberate Constantinople (known as the ‘Megali Idea’) was destroyed when the British, French, and Italians prevented the Greek Army from liberating Constantinople. After the anti-Greek pogroms in 1955, the final exodus of Greek Orthodox from the City of the Emperors and Patriarchs began. The Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople is now around 1,500. In our own day, the Great Church of Aghia Sophia has been
converted into a Mosque once more.

The great spiritual and cultural heritage of Constantinople should never be forgotten.