Construction and Restoration of churches in Turkey

[kundur]

Bulgar Orthodox Church in Istanbul's Balat (Golden Horn, center of Istanbul) was reopened recently after 7 years of restoration.
It is one of the most important Bulgarian churches worldwide. Dating back 19th century, it was built by the Ottoman administration and financed by the sultan himself, as a part of the process to officially recognize the Bulgars as an Orthodox entity and nation separate from the nation of Romans (Rums or Greeks), thus Greek patriarchate not having anymore authority on the Bulgarian believers.
Bulgarian religious leader and prime minister participated to the opening ceremony. This is the Only iron church in the world.





Construction of a new Assyrian church in Istanbul.
The first. Assyrians are the oldest Christian community in the world, living in Southeastern Turkey in Mardin region. Their community had no church in Istanbul and the state of Turkey granted them a land in the European side of Istanbul and financed the construction of a sizable church. Construction started in 2019 and is underway as of 2020.

[-Invictus-]

Nice! Thanks for that. The iron church is beautiful.

On the other hand it looks like a calculated move to me. "Here, we renovated a church and built a new one. We are supportive of Christianity " and in the meantime :

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-power/590449/

"Turkey’s mosques are controlled by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, a state body that employs imams, writes sermons, and issues fatwas. It was founded in 1924, but grew rapidly under the AKP to become a more overtly political organ with an ambitious global remit. With well over 100,000 people now on its payroll, its budget has expanded more than fourfold since 2006, during Erdoğan’s first term as prime minister, to 12.5 billion lira ($2 billion) this year. That figure is orders of magnitude larger than many government ministries, and even the national intelligence agency. Diyanet spokespeople did not respond to repeated requests for comment."

[Bender1999]

Nice! Thanks for that. The iron church is beautiful.

On the other hand it looks like a calculated move to me. "Here, we renovated a church and built a new one. We are supportive of Christianity " and in the meantime :

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-power/590449/

"Turkey’s mosques are controlled by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, a state body that employs imams, writes sermons, and issues fatwas. It was founded in 1924, but grew rapidly under the AKP to become a more overtly political organ with an ambitious global remit. With well over 100,000 people now on its payroll, its budget has expanded more than fourfold since 2006, during Erdoğan’s first term as prime minister, to 12.5 billion lira ($2 billion) this year. That figure is orders of magnitude larger than many government ministries, and even the national intelligence agency. Diyanet spokespeople did not respond to repeated requests for comment."

Why do you care about where where turkey is investing his money? Do you really think that the leftover of muslims which are still living in Bulgaria would change or influence anything in your country? That turkey invests in mosques has 2 reasons: 1. restoration 2. because of the mosques of the diaspora. The second thing is often criticized by those counties, but the first point is their right. Really, after displace the Muslims and Turks after 1ww and those ones who came after/during cold war, neither Bulgaria, nor any other Balkan country dont need be afraid about Turkey and Turks. Always bashing turks but not mention what the turks and other muslims experienced in the last hundred years. Especially Bulgaria dont need to be afraid, Turkey and Bulgaria have excellent relationships. The same counts for other Balkan countries instead of Greece.

[-Invictus-]

Why do you care about where where turkey is investing his money? Do you really think that the leftover of muslims which are still living in Bulgaria would change or influence anything in your country? That turkey invests in mosques has 2 reasons: 1. restoration 2. because of the mosques of the diaspora. The second thing is often criticized by those counties, but the first point is their right. Really, after displace the Muslims and Turks after 1ww and those ones who came after/during cold war, neither Bulgaria, nor any other Balkan country dont need be afraid about Turkey and Turks. Always bashing turks but not mention what the turks and other muslims experienced in the last hundred years. Especially Bulgaria dont need to be afraid, Turkey and Bulgaria have excellent relationships. The same counts for other Balkan countries instead of Greece.

We are in good relations and I hope it stays like that for a long time. The Bulgarian Turks are 8% of the population. That's not a very big percentage, but it's not small either. The Turkish party in Bulgaria was in the ruling coalition a couple of years ago. By the way, the former leader of that party, Ahmed Dogan, has a big palace on the shore of the Black Sea( https://www.flagman.bg/news/2016/03/...3106580962.jpg ) that is guarded by national security, even though he isn't an active politician anymore and the guards restrict access to national property such as the seashore next to the palace, which was filmed by a Bulgarian politician and arose a big scandal in the recent days that sparked ongoing protests. The same Dogan is so arrogant that 10 years ago he was filmed saying in a speech that "The deputies have no power. The power is in my hands. It is me who rations the portions in the country." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOenhDrQkpg Found the quotes in English in this book https://books.google.bg/books?id=QcF...rtions&f=false The ongoing scandals around him and the reminder of that speech coupled with finding out that Erdogan is building the biggest mosque in Bulgaria in Kardzhali, while also spending 2 billion on mosques around the world only in 2019 and thinking if he should turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque is worrying me. Of course, the Bulgarian Turks are in no way responsible for what Dogan or Erdogan are doing, but these people have big influence over them. Dogan is not a public figure anymore and I'm sure most Bulgarian Turks dislike him, but I think he is still pulling the strings of the Turkish party in Bulgaria. Erdogan is trying to take Bulgarian Turks under his wing too with that new mosque. I wish I could write that in a separate topic to not mess up the post about the beautiful renovated churches, but that's where my conversation with kundur headed from the other thread about Hagia Sophia. In one sentence - I wish our countries are in good relations, but I also don't like what I'm seeing.