ISTAMBUL (dpa) – According to rough estimates, some 99 per cent of Turks are Moslem. It is some surprise then to find in the heart of the Asian side of Istanbul a small congregation of Turks singing hymns in their own language at a church belonging to the Turkic World Presbyterian Church.
The small All Saints Church in Mode was built at the end of the 19th century and today is home to a congregation of around 200 Turks.
The minister in charge at the church is Turgay Ucal, 39, who converted to Christianity about 20 years ago.
“We are a Turkish-speaking church but not a Turkish church. Our church is for anyone,” he told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa after a Tuesday service.
About 40 people were at Tuesday’s service, almost all of them women.
“On Tuesday the men are at work. Some men don’t want their women to go to church,” Ucal said.
On Sundays, however, the church is packed. Not just with Turkish converts but with university students from a nearby Moslem Theology Faculty eager to learn what Christianity is about, as well as local Moslems who enjoy the spiritual sufi-style hymns.
After the service a women in a traditional Islmaic-style headscarf asked Ucal to pray for her and her family, a common event said Ucal.
“We are talking to the people, we are praying for them if they ask for it but we don’t say they must become Christian.”
Thanks to this approach the church has no problems with the authorities. In a law that goes back to Ottoman times, missionary activities are banned in Turkey and every now and then there are reports of foreign missionaries, mainly Americans, being arrested for handing out bibles.
While officially the church is allowed to get on with its work, Ucal still has to comply with Turkey’s strict laws governing the supervision of religion. As his church is not a recognised minority, like the Greek Orthodox Church for instance, Ucal has to report to the Istanbul Police Anti-terrorism Department.
Ucal admits that the reason his church is treated well is that it is based in Istanbul, a city that has many Christian churches and is by far the most cosmopolitan city in the country.
That can be seen from the reaction of neighbours to All Saints. When they first started services “they all thought we were spreading propaganda,” says Ucal. Today, they call him hoca, the term used to address an Islamic teacher.
The fact that this small group exists at all is in some ways a surprise. Christian and Jewish groups have not had it easy in Turkey in the past century.
Many foundations have had there land and property confiscated by the state with no compensation and many minority groups have complained of continuing discrimination. Due to the massive upheavals during the First World War and the resulting War of Independence, hundreds of thousands of Christians have left the country.
At the beginning of the 20th century Christians made up about 20 per cent of the population in the land now occupied by modern Turkey. Today, that figure is around 0.2 per cent.
Ucal’s congregation is small but his influence is extending. His book “Christian Ethics” is used at Theology Faculties around Istanbul. The main message: peace and tolerance.
