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Poor economy, security pushes Hamdaniyah Christians abroad

Category: Newsfeed

Author: Hastyar Qadir

Publication Date: 2/8/2022

Source: Rudaw

At least 30 Christian families migrated from Nineveh’s Hamdaniyah in July, due to economic and security reasons, a local official told Rudaw on Tuesday.

“Thirty families migrated from Hamdaniyah in July,” Issam Bahnam, the district’s mayor told Rudaw, adding that the families previously left the area but had returned.

Half a century later, Assyrians return home in Mardin province

Category: Newsfeed

Publication Date: 18/8/2022

Source: Rudaw

Driven by war, violence, and discrimination half a century ago, Assyrians in southeastern Turkey have recently decided to return home to Midyat town to rebuild what they call their ancestors' land using the same original architectural designs.

Located in Mardin province in the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey (Bakur), the population of Midyat was mainly Assyrians in the past, also referred to as Syriac.

1,100-year-old Armenian church in eastern Türkiye holds 10th holy mass since reopening

Category: Newsfeed

Author: Mesut Varol and Emre Ilikan

Publication Date: 4/9/2022

Source: Anadolu Agency

A 1,100-year-old Armenian church in Türkiye's eastern Van province hosted its 10th special mass on Sunday since reopening in 2010 after a 95-year hiatus.

Sahak Mashalian, the head of the Armenian Patriarchate in Türkiye, and Father Harutyun Damatian came to the island along with his clergy to conduct the ceremony in the Akdamar Church.

For the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, an Armenian becomes Governor of a district

Category: Newsfeed

Publication Date: 22/8/2022

Source: Agenzia Fides

His name is Berk Acar and he is 27 years old and is the first Armenian Christian to become governor of a district in the history of the Republic of Turkey. The news, echoed by the Turkish media, is yet another confirmation of the features that characterize the condition of the Armenian community in Erdogan's Turkey and the tenor of its participation in the country's political and institutional dynamics.

Christian group demands Turkish authorities answer question about alleged plot to kill pastors

Category: Newsfeed

Author: Anugrah Kumar

Publication Date: 18/9/2022

Source: Christian Post

The U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide has called on the government of Turkey to investigate a claim that the country’s security officials offered to pay an ultranationalist “whatever he wanted” in return for assassinating church leaders.

Last month, an ultranationalist man, identified only as Tolgahan A., confessed to Vedat Serin, a leader of the Salvation Church in the eastern city of Malatya, that members of Turkey’s Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit offered him “whatever he wanted” if he killed Serin and two other Christian leaders — former pastor Tim Stone and Pastor Ihsan Özbek, the chair of Kurtuluş Churches Association, CSW said in a statement.

Religious Communities Dissatisfied with Turkey’s New Foundations

Category: Newsfeed

Publication Date: 30/8/2022

Source: Persecution

The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople penned a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outlining the dissatisfaction and frustration among the Armenian Christian community over the newly released foundation regulations. In order to manage their work, non-Muslim religious communities must register as a foundation in Turkey.