Thursday, September 08, 2011

Turkey to restore properties to Christian groups

Wow, and the good news for the Christians of Turkey does not cease. I recently posted on some good news HERE, and now we read this:
The Turkish government made a historic U-turn in state policy this past weekend, issuing an official decree inviting Turkey’s Christian and Jewish communities to reclaim their long-confiscated religious properties. [...] 
Within hours of the surprise announcement, the boards of Turkey’s minority religious foundations in Istanbul were scrambling to review the status of their confiscated immovable properties. They must apply within the next 12 months to the General Foundations Board to recover each individual property. 
Their former holdings include schools, churches, cemeteries, stores, hospitals, orphanages, houses, apartment buildings and factories that were seized by the Turkish state and re-registered as public or foundation properties. A number were later sold to third parties.
Read it all at CompassDirect, and good for Turkey. If you want to know more about the growth of the Protestant Church in Turkey, the best article I know of is James Bultema's article in IJFM, which you can read here.

2 comments:

JackOfClubs said...

Does this mean we get the Hagia Sophia back?

Abu Daoud said...

Wow, now that would be something! But I doubt it. That was taken from the Christians way before Turkey came into existence.