Mensen die geïnteresseerd zijn in de meer recente Griekse geschiedenis, moeten zeker gaan kijken naar de film Waiting for the clouds. Vandaag staat er een recensie in de Standaard. Iedereen heeft al wel gehoord van de genocide die de Turken pleegden tegenover de Armeense bevolking (een heikele politieke kwestie nu Turkije lid wil worden van de EU). Wat minder bekend is, is dat de Turken ook de Pontische Grieken hebben opgejaagd, vermoord en verdreven. Wie zijn die Pontische Grieken eigenlijk? Het zijn Grieken die sinds mensenheugenis (tot 1000 voor Christus, naar het schijnt) in de streek rond de Zwarte Zee woonden. Een naam die misschien een belletje doet rinkelen is Trabzon (is Pfaff daar ooit geen trainer geweest?), wat een Griekse stad was, namelijk Trapezounda.
Hoe dan ook: de film legt niet echt de hele geschiedenis uit, maar laat wel zien hoe mensen moeten overleven in een land dat vijandig staat tegenover hun cultuur. Gelukkig is de Pontische cultuur niet volledig verloren gegaan: vele Pontische Grieken zijn naar Griekenland uitgeweken. Je kan ze “herkennen” aan hun familienaam: Griekse namen die eindigen op -idis, zijn Pontisch.
TURKS DO NOT WANT SOME CHRISTIANS IN ASIA MINOR!
Turkey has the remainder of the Ottoman Empire a genocidaal past and present are suppressed minorities in Turkey …..
The mass extermination of Christians in Turkey goes on, under the eyes of the corrupt Western rulers!!??
Turkish mass slaughter Turkey was once a Christian country. Already in the year 650 ad Armenia conquered Islamic troops. Two large-scale Arab attacks on Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the year, however, by the Christian-Roman forces be 655 repelled. Of 674-678 and in 717/718 the Muslims besieged Constantinople again, without them I managed to take the city. The final conquest of Constantinople by the Muslims took place in 1453 by the Ottomans (Turks). Thus ended the Christian-Byzantine Empire. At The Same Time began the systematic extermination and the enslavement of Christians by Muslims. In 1914 there were still 25% Christians in Turkey, now it hardly still 0.2%. The Turkish Muslims have so in 1925 the 461 years between 1453 and 75% of all Christians driven out, murdered or forced Islamized. There found a nearly completed extermination and expulsion of Christians on the current region of Turkey. Turkey is actually a huge Christian Cemetery, probably the most famous in the world. There it is Christianity already 1000 years and to this day, prosecuted. Almost 100% of the indigenous population on the current Turkish territory was Christian, before going through the Jihad (holy war), by conquest, persecution, mass murder, expulsion, churches destruction or forced conversion to islam were almost completely exterminated. Now it’s only 0.2% and also they are not treaties in Turkey.
‘ The Christians in Turkey now form a religious minority. They live for about 2000 years on the current Turkish territory. According to the New Testament, the Apostle Paul was coming from the current Turkey and carried out most of his mission work there as well. The Apostle also in history, the Catholic letters and the revelation of John communities in the area of the current Turkey play a central role. The Western Asia minor was the main source of the non-Jewish, from former Pagans recruited Christianity. ‘
Later lived here many of the main Popes. All seven ecumenical councils recognized in the East and West together (meeting of the highest Christian dignitaries) also found on the current Turkish territory. Thereby the whole Christianity here in the first millennium of the Christian period decisive affected. The Turkish Christians in the Anatolian part of the then Turkey counted at the end of the 19th century still more than 3.6 million souls (35% of the population on the territory of present Turkey). Turkey had hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees in the 19th century included: Albanians, Bosnians and Balkans-Turks, who after delamination of the Balkan countries of the Ottoman Empire were driven out or fled. That led to a demographic decline of the Christian population part in the Anatolian part of Turkey. In the areas inhabited by Armenian Christians alone were 850,000 Islamic refugees established. The Turkish variant of the ‘ final solution ‘ to the Christians at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century most Christians from what is now Turkey driven out or killed. The main stages are.
1894-1896 – at anti-Armenian pogroms were 50,000 to 80,000 Armenian Christians murdered. The victims were Armenian Apostolic men.
1909 – at panislamistische (pro-Islamic), anti-Armenian pogroms in Adana and the province of Cilicia were 60,000 Armenian Christians murdered. Until 1910 the subsequent epidemics and famine still demanded 40,000 victims among the survivors of the massacre. During the second Balkan war in 1913 were Thracian Bulgarians and Bulgarians from the Anatolian areas driven out. Estimates of organizations of displaced persons and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church speak of between 360,000 and 600,000 refugees.
1915-1917 – according to various estimates there were 1.5 to 1.7 million Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire killed. Hundreds of thousands were to Mesopotamia and Arabia deported, many died during the deportations, some fled to the Russian part of Armenia, there still lived less than 100,000 Armenians after 1922 in the country. Also the Ottoman Assyrians after 1915 were the victim of genocide.
1922-1923 – approximately 1 350 000 Greek Orthodox Christians were under the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish war and following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey agreed to after Greece revealed. Exceptions to this were only the Greek-Orthodox communities in Istanbul and on the islands of Bozcaada and Gökçeada. At the population exchange were also 200,000 Islamic Turks from Greece to the new Turkish national State driven out. After the conquest of the Greek areas or during the expulsions were tens of thousands of Christians killed.
1955 – Istanbul pogrom against Greeks especially after the targeted thousands of Greek Orthodox inhabitants left the city. Of the 310,000 Greeks in the year 1923 only ten years after the pogrom 4,000 were about. The descendants of the remaining Christians live mostly in Istanbul (Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians), Tur Abdin in the area (most Syriac Orthodox and Aramaic Christians) and in the Southeast in the province of Hatay around the old the current Antioch, Antalya Patriarchs. This province was up to in the years-20 of the last century Syrian area.
Nowadays there are about 40,000 Christians in Turkey and they constitute about 0.002% of the population of the country. Approximately 85% of the Christians in Turkey is concentrated in Istanbul.
Current situation and human rights human rights organisations such as the Gesellschaft für Völker (GfbV = Association for threatened peoples) assess the situation of Turkish Christians as critical. Officially, there is religious freedom in Turkey (according to article 24 of the Constitution), but still, there are all kinds of restrictions such as the ban on priests and religion teachers. Attacks on Christians (including foreign) and on Christian buildings still come for in Turkey.