Bishop Timotheus Samuel Aktas

A very timely story yesterday in the Wall Street Journal by Andrew Higgins about a land dispute between Syriac Orthodox monastery Mor Gabriel and Turkish authorities. Also yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a stop in Ankara, announced that President Obama will be visiting Turkey “in a month or so.” She said this toward the end of her public remarks:

I reiterate the Obama Administration’s support for Turkey’s membership in the European Union. The United States believes it will strengthen Turkey, Europe, and our transatlantic partnership. The United States continues to support the UN-sponsored talks now taking place to achieve a settlement of the Cyprus conflict based on reunification of the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. We talked about Turkey’s democracy, its multiethnic heritage, and in that context, I raised the importance that we place on reopening the Halki Seminary and efforts to reach out to all of Turkey’s communities.

For the Journal story about Mor Gabriel, Higgins interviewed Bishop Timotheus Samuel Aktas, abbot of the ancient monstery, who claims that the surrounding villagers and local government officials simply want the Christian community to “go away.”

Here’s a snippet from “Defending the Faith — Battle Over a Christian Monastery Tests Turkey’s Tolerance of Minorities” [registration required]:

A big obstacle is Turkey’s continuing tensions with its ethnic minorities, notably the Kurds, who account for more than 15% of the population and are battling for greater autonomy. Also fraught, but more under the radar, is the situation confronting members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, one of the world’s oldest and most beleaguered Christian communities. The group’s fate is now seen as a test of Turkey’s ability to accommodate groups at odds with “Turkishness,” a legal concept of national identity that has at times been used to suppress minority groups. Continue reading →