TO TURN AN ORTHODOX CHURCH INTO A MOSQUE
Aysor
Aug 27 2009
Armenia
The Turkish authorities intend to turn St. Dmitri Orthodox Church
into a mosque, informs the "Milliyet".
The church was built in the first half of the 19th century in the
suburbs of Silivri, not far from Istanbul. The constructions near
the church have already begun.
Oktay Ekinci, the architect and the scholar of the Academy of Fine
Arts, criticized this decision and called it "not righteous and
anti-aesthetic from the scientific point of view".
The church was built in 1931 by Orthodox Greeks, whose offsprings
were exiled from Silivri, and their houses were occupied by Moslems
who had come from Greece. Before building a new mosque they held
their religious rituals in the church, near which they had built a
wooden minaret.
Speculating this historical fact the authorities hold activities under
the heading "Preservation of a mosque". Not only the architects and
the art critics, but also the Orthodox society stood against this fact.
According to the data of Costandnupolis patriarchate there were two
Orthodox churches in Silivri in the 20t century, but most of the
historical documents about the churches were either abolished or lost
after the Greeks exile.