Though he has allowed new houses of worship to be built and old ones to be reopened, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needs to do more, observers say, to restore respect for a truly pluralistic society as much as for church property.
Angela Denker reflects on the aftermath of the worst earthquake in recent memory that struck Turkey and northwest Syria. Like all natural disasters and mass casualty events, as the death toll rises our ability to contemplate and synthesize the loss paradoxically decreases.
After 106 years, the United States government officially declared the horror a genocide. While it took more than a century for an American president to acknowledge the genocide, at least one Baptist denomination responded to the Armenian Genocide as it was taking place. Read full piece
Armenian evangelicals praise first US president to formally use word to describe 1915 massacre by Ottoman Turks. Read full piece
Wave of Christian expat expulsions leaves many churches without leaders. Read full piece
The dwindling community feels threatened by rising nationalism. Read full piece
The president of Turkey on Friday formally reconverted Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship, hours after a high court annulled a 1934 decision that had made the religious landmark a museum. The decision sparked deep dismay among Orthodox
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Thousands of Orthodox Christian worshippers plunged into the icy waters of rivers and lakes across Bulgaria on Monday to retrieve crucifixes tossed by priests in Epiphany ceremonies commemorating the baptism of Jesus Christ.
In Turkey, the seemingly modern idea of “paying it forward” goes back centuries. It’s called askıda ekmek, and it relates specifically to paying it forward with bread.
Not long after the defeat of the Islamic State in the area, Syrian Christians warn that US military withdrawal from the Kurdish-controlled region will expose them to danger.