The Greeks Of Turkey

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History

Since ancient times Greeks have being living in both sides of the Aegean Archipelago, for more than two millennia before the arrival of the Turks. After the Turkish conquest, Greeks of Anatolia faced centuries of ethnic cleansing and forcible conversion to Islam. Systematic extermination of Greeks in Turkey reached its climax in our century, after the Armenian Genocide and during the First World War and the subsequent Greco-turkish war of 1922. The 1922 war resulted to the Treaty of Lausanne and a population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, after which only 200,000 Greeks remained in Turkey. Following a campaign of systematic persecution during World War Two and a state-organized pogrom in 1955, the officially recognized Greek population of Turkey has shrunk to a small community of a few thousand people living mainly around Bosporus.

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The "Kristallnacht" of 1955

The night of 6th to 7th of September 1955, a Turkish mob in Istanbul, organized and directed by state authorities, conducted a vicious pogrom against the Greek Community of Istanbul. As a result:
Sixteen Greeks died (the 90-years old Fr. Mantas was burned alive), and thirty two were severely wounded.

• At least two hundred Greek women were raped. Hundreds of Greeks were tortured.
• Seventy three churches and twenty three schools were vandalized, burned or destroyed.
• One thousand four houses were looted; 4,348 stores, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies and 21 factories destroyed.
• The Patriarchal and other Greek cemeteries were desecrated. The dead bodies of Patriarchs were unburied and profaned.
• Relics of Saints were burned or thrown to the dogs.

In 1958-1959, a new anti-greek wave took place. Turkish nationalist students embarked on a campaign of leaflet distribution outside Greek shops, encouraging the boycott of Greek businesses.
In 1964, all Greek nationals, permanent residents of Istanbul (people who were born and lived in Istanbul but retained the Greek citizenship) were eexpelled from the country on a two-day notice. Eventually, the Greek community of Istanbul shrunk from eighty thousand souls in 1955 to only forty eight thousand in 1965. In August 1995, the US Senate passed a special resolution marking the anti-Greek pogrom of September 1955, calling on the US President to proclaim September 6, 1955, a Day of Memory for the victims of the pogrom.

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Present Situation

At the end of the twentieth century, however, the persecution of the Greek Community in Turkey continues. In particular, during the last couple of years, ethnic Greeks in Turkey witnessed:

• desecration of their religious sanctuaries
• threats against their religious leaders
• discrimination against their young people
• intimidation of their legal advocates

Desecration of Religious Sanctuaries

October 1994:The Turkish government used the ancient Greek-Orthodox Church of Haghia Eirene in Istanbul as a stage of a beauty contest. This sacrilege insulted millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide.
The Church was built by the Emperor Justinianus I in the sixth century AD and was the Imperial Chapel of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, it was converted to a mosque, and finally transformed to a museum by the Turkish Republic in 1923.
Haghia Eirene is one of the most important existing Orthodox monuments, classified by UNESCO as part of the world's cultural patrimony.
August 24, 1993: Vandals attacked and desecrated the Christian Orthodox cemetery in Yenikoy, Istanbul. The vandals destroyed fourteen graves, broke crosses, scattered the bones of the dead and, in one case, took a corpse outside of its shroud.
March 1993: the Cathedral of Virgin Mary in the island of Imvros was attacked viciously. Icons were stolen and the altar was vandalized. August 1992: Thirty graves of the cemetery of the Büyükdere were looted.


Violation of Civil and Minority Rights

The Turkish state, with a number of secret decrees (1964, 1985, 1986), revoked the right of ethnic Greeks to trade, buy and inherit properties. In particular, with the secret decree of 1964, authorities had the right to block the transfer of property titles for the members of the Greek minority. As a result, numerous Greeks could not inherit family properties, which were eventually sold to Turks at very low. As the decree was secret, Greeks could not even challenge it in courts.


Private property belonging to ethnic-Greeks and to Greek religious, community and education foundations has been confiscated. Currently, ethnic-Greeks trying to reclaim their property, have to go through years of judicial struggle; most of them are obliged to sell out their estates to Turks for nominal prices.

Ethnic Greek lawyer faces charges: Elpida Frangopoulou, an ethnic Greek lawyer in Istanbul was charged with "insulting the Turkish nation" when she protested after being discriminated against, while trying to acquire a copy of her high-school diploma. After two years of judicial struggle she was convicted to two months imprisonment and was put on probation. Ms. Frangopoulou is well-known for her continuous struggle to save the vast wealth of thousands of ethnic Greeks of Istanbul following the 1964 secret Turkish decree which confiscated their properties.

The islands of Imvros and Tenedos: these two islands of the Aegean Sea, near the Dardanelle straits, had exclusively Greek population in 1922. With the Treaty of Lausanne, the islands were given to Turkey and were granted special autonomy status. Following the establishment of Turkish authorities in September 1923, however, the local governments were resolved and mayors and local officials were expelled. Autonomy was eventually revoked in 1927.

Since then, Turkey confiscated all minority school property in Imvros, the larger of the two islands, closed down six elementary schools, confiscated thousands of acres of land used in agriculture, prohibited the export of meat, and established an open prison in the island. Land appropriations continued through 1984, when the indigenous Greek population was left with virtually no agricultural property. Meanwhile, in 1978, Turkey started distributing these lands to settlers from the mainland.
Inmates of the open prison committed numerous crimes: in 1973, Stelios Kavalieros was slaughtered and the whole island was terrorized; in 1975, inmates raped and murdered Ms. Styliani Zouni in the village of St. Theodoroi; in 1980 they murdered Efstratios Stylianides and Nikos Ladas. On November 1990, Zaf. Delikonstantes was slaughtered. No murderer was ever punished.


Persecution and Discrimination in Higher Education

Since 1936, Turkey has imposed the use of the Turkish language in most courses taught in Greek minority schools, prohibiting the teaching of Greek history and geography. Following a decree of 1964, the Turkish state prohibits the entrance of Greek-Orthodox clerics into Greek minority schools and the celebration of Christmas and Easter; morning prayer in schools is forbidden. Since September 1964, with the Law 8459, Greek students are not allowed to speak Greek during class breaks. In 1971, Greek pupils are enforced to start and end their classes saying : "I am happy to be a Turk." In the 60's, several Greek schools were closed down by the state and their property was confiscated. Since the '70s, the Turkish state has imposed Turkish directors to the schools of the Greek community, who raise all kinds of obstacles in the daily educational work.


April 1994: Unidentified persons tossed burning torches into the yard of the Greek Grand National Academy, in Phanar, Istanbul. The fire was extinguished immediately with Fire Brigade assistance.
September 1994: more than one hundred Greek high-school graduates in Istanbul were not allowed to enroll to Turkish Universities. The pupils had succeeded in the nation-wide entrance exams. The pretext for this discriminatory decision was that they had not attended the course of physical education during the previous school-year. It was because of the Turkish authorities, however, that this course was not taught: Turkey did not allow the entrance of teachers from Greece to teach in Greek minority schools, thus violating the Lausanne Treaty.

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Religious Discrimination: The Ecumenical Patriarchate

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is the oldest active institution in Eastern Europe and the Balkans today. Its history dates back to 330 A.D., when Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to the new city of Constantinople. Since then, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has been the spiritual center of Orthodox Christians worldwide, its influence spanning from Russia to the United States, and from Finland to South Africa.


The Patriarchate has suffered terrible hardships under the Ottoman yoke first, and the Turkish Republic later. Numerous Patriarchs, hundreds of Bishops, thousands of priests, monks and nuns were executed, imprisoned or exiled. Many Patriarchs and Bishops were deposed. Persecution continues even today.

On August 11, 1995, the US Senate passed a resolution condemning ongoing Turkish provocation against the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the closing of the Chalke Patriarchal School of Theology as a violation of international treaties to which Turkey is a signatory. The lengthy resolution enumerates established charges against the Turkish authorities and said it is in the best interests of the United States to prevent further incidents regarding the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the spiritual leader, it noted, of millions of US citizens.

The Patriarchal Theological School of Chalke: The Turkish Government arbitrarily closed the Chalke Patriarchal School of Theology in 1971. The School was established in 1844 as the principal educational foundation for the Patriarchate's clergy. Many Patriarchs of the Orthodox Church throughout the world, as well as many Orthodox Bishops in the United States, have graduated from the School of Chalke.

Since 1971, Turkey refuses to re-open the School, in spite of the continuous requests by Patriarch Vartholomeos I and his predecessor, Patriarch Dimitrios. Speaking during the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the School's opening, Patriarch Vartholomeos mentioned that "it is inconceivable that this School should have operated in the days of monarchical Ottoman Empire, and be denied such a possibility in today's republican Turkey." He added that "in a secular state, such as Turkey, all religions and dogmas should enjoy equal possibilities of preparing and training their clerics," noting that Islam has a multitude of theological and clerical schools.

The closing of the Chalke School of Theology violates International Treaties to which Turkey has been a signatory, including the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne (article 40), the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and the Charter of Paris.

The Patriarchal printing facilities: In 1975, four years after closing the School of Chalke, Turkey closed down the Patriarchal printing facilities, which were in operation since 1937.

The functioning of the Patriarchate: According to Turkish law, the Patriarch and the Bishops of the Holy Synod, must be Turkish citizens. However, given the elimination of the Greek Orthodox Community of Turkey and the closing of the Theological School of Chalke, it is becoming very hard for the Orthodox Church to appoint its primates.
Turkey opposes the ecumenicity of the Patriarchate, and prevents Bishops from the Dioceses of America, Australia and Europe (where most of the Patriarchate's flock resides) to participate and get elected in the Holy Synod; the obstacle being their US, Australian or European citizenship!
When the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to open a representation office in Brussels (Oct. 1994), at the invitation of European Commission's President J. Delors, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Ferhat Ataman said "the Patriarchate is not a legal body. There is no reason for it to create a representation at the European Union." Mr. Ataman added that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, apart from its religious duties, "has no legal personality," and concluded that there is no reason for it to establish a representation at the European Union." It is noted that one of the reasons that the Patriarchate was invited to establish an office in Brussels, was its influence over the religious and cultural affairs of the Orthodox Christians of Eastern Europe.

Thus, in its quest for ethnic and religious homogeneity, Turkey is threatening the existence of one of the oldest religious institutions worldwide, and to virtually establish the primacy of the Russian Patriarchate of Moscow over the Orthodox World.

Attacks against the Patriarchate: On September 1995, the President of the Turkish Parliament Mr H. Cindoruk, speaking at a meeting of the American-Turkish Council of Businessmen, threatened that "the Patriarchate would be turned to a museum, in case the Patriach makes a mistake." Mr. Cindoruk's remarks were published in the mass-circulation newspapers "Gumhuriyet" and "Yeni Yuzyil."

On March 1994, two firebombs were hurled by unidentified individuals into the Patriarchate's yard in Istanbul. The fire which broke out was quickly put out by officials before any damage was caused.
On April 1994, the newly-elected Islamist mayor of the Phanar district of Istanbul, where the Holy See is located, threatened that he would make a "triumphant entry into the Ecumenical Patriarchate through the sealed gate"—the gate where Patriarch Grigorios V was hanged on April 10 1821, Easter Sunday. The gate has remained closed ever since.
Turkish press attacks the Patriarch: Reacting to the Patriarch Vartholomeos' visit and speech in front of the European Parliament in 1994, Turkish nationalistic press has required that his All Holiness be tried for traveling abroad.

June 4, 1995: The turkish weekly magazine "Aksiyon" published an editorial cover story titled "The Patriarch has gone over the limit." The magazine called the Turkish government to remove Patriarch Vartholomeos from his seat, in order "to prevent future religious leaders from dreaming of universality (ecumenism)." The magazine added that "Patriarch Vartholomeos is no different from Iakovos [the present Greek-Orthodox Archbishop of North and South America].
October 1994: Turkey's mass-circulation newspaper "Sabah" accused the Patriarchate of moving towards "ecumenicity" and that its international personality "will be made official in mid-November." The report said such a development would harm Turkey's interests and accused the Turkish foreign ministry of inertia. It is noted that Islamist and nationalist intellectuals try to instigate anti-Greek and anti-Patriarchate hatred claiming that the "Phanar wants to acquire the status enjoyed by the Vatican," that is, independent statehood.

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Other Greek communities

Besides the Greek communities of Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos, there are small ethnic Greek communities scattered throughout Turkey. Some have lost their Christian Orthodox faith, others still practice it underground (underground-Christians). All of these communities have no right to express their identity, to maintain and cherish their culture and language.

The case of Antiochian Greeks: with the term "Antiochian" Greeks we describe the ethnic, Greek-Orthodox population of the area of Hatay, around the cities of Alexandretta (Iskandar) and Antioche, the old See of the fourth ancient Orthodox Patriarchate (the current See is in Damascus). The Treaty of Ankara of 1921 gave Hatay to Syria, making it a French protectorate. In 1936 Turkey's leader, Mustafa Kemal, raised demands on Alexandretta. In 1937, Turkey asked for the intervention of the League of Nations, the UN of the time. In 1937 the League suggested the establishment of the independent Republic of Hatay.

However, in 1938, Turkey invaded Hatay and brought settlers from mainland Turkey. After elections that had been carried under Turkish military occupation, the elected Hatay Parliament asked for union with the Turkish "motherland."

According to a census conducted by the Patriarchate of Antioch in 1895, the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Hatay were 500,000. Today, less than 10,000 remain in Turkey. Most of them are Arab or Turkish speaking. Turkey never allowed them to maintain Greek schools or use the Greek language in their Churches. In 1979, Turkey disallowed the use of the term "Rum (i.e. Greek) Orthodox" in official documents referring to Antiochian Greeks. Many last-names are forcibly turkified.

(c) Marios D. Dikaiakos, 1995

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A nice article from GEORGE GILSON regarding the Hellenic Minority in Turkey

Introduction

After the end of World War I, the victorious Allied Powers signed separate peace Treaties with each of the Central Powers and their allies. In the case of Turkey, and in light of subsequent developments that had rendered the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 out of date, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed on the 24th of July 1923.


The Treaty of Lausanne fixed the terms on which peace was reestablished with Turkey. It incorporated in its text the agreements signed between that country and Hellas in January of that same year, which were part of the solution to the "Eastern Question."

One of these agreements was a Convention foreseeing the compulsory exchange of populations between the two countries. However, the Greeks of Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos on the one hand, and the Muslims of Thrace on the other, were exempted from this exchange.

A. The Hellenic-Orthodox Community of Constantinople

According to the provisions of the Lausanne Treaty, 73,000 Greeks were accorded Turkish citizenship while 30,000 Hellenic citizens permanently established until then in Istanbul, remained there as members of the Hellenic-Orthodox community, on the basis of a separate Protocol signed on the same date (July 1923).

Taking into consideration that the families as well as the enterprises of the above population were strictly connected with Istanbul, this population constituted an integral part of the city.

The Turkish side accepted their right to stay in their place of birth. This was the result not only of the Lausanne Treaty but also of the Hellenic-Turkish Conventions signed on July and October of 1930.

Despite their conventional obligations, the Turks were intolerant vis a vis the minorities living in their country. Specifically, while the specter of Nazism was hovering over Europe, Turkey refused to play any part in the fight of the Western World to uphold democratic ideals, claiming "neutrality." At the same time, all Hellenes between 18 and 45 years of age were mobilized and, subsequently, deported to special labor camps in the depths of Asia Minor.

Furthermore, in November 1942, Ankara put into force the notorious "Varlik vergisi" Law imposing a wealth tax on property. The provisions of that law were enforced with exceptional zeal only against Turkish subjects belonging to non-Moslem minorities. As a result, the Hellenes were forced to liquidate all their property, but since even so they were not able to meet the imposed obligations, they were uprooted from their homes and put to forced labor. (It should be noted that the Greek minority, although it constituted only 0,5% of the whole Turkish population, contributed 20% of the country's total income emanating from this tax).

This measure was the most serious violation of the Lausanne Treaty's dispositions for the protection of minorities.

After a short respite in the pressure, a new period of crisis for the Hellenic minority began with the Cyprus affair and resulted in anti-Hellenic demonstrations in Constantinople and Smirni in September 1955. A mob, under the direction of the Turkish authorities, took to the streets of Constantinople. Their attacks were made exclusively against the Hellenes, whose shops, workshops, houses, churches, hospitals, schools, and cemeteries were wrecked and looted.

The refusal of any protection from the Turkish side resulted in a dramatic reduction of the Hellenic element of Constantinople, but the fatal blow came in 1964-1965, when Ankara denounced the Hellenic-Turkish Convention of 1930 on installation, which led nearly 12,600 Hellenic subjects living in Constantinople to a mass expulsion while, at the same time, their properties in Turkey were frozen.

In conclusion, the mass flight of the Hellenes of Istanbul is due exclusively to the unbearable conditions under which they were obliged to live. Due to these conditions, the Hellenic community of Constantinople that numbered 270,000 souls in 1922 has been reduced to 3,000 persons today.

B. The Hellenes of Imvros and Tenedos

The adventure of Hellenes on the islands of Imvros and Tenedos reflects the most flagrant violations of the Lausanne Treaty's provisions.

After a period of twelve years of Greek administration, these two islands were assigned to Turkey because of their strategic importance.

However, the Lausanne Treaty recognized the natural right of self-determination for the Greek inhabitants of the two islands, including article 14, which provided for the status of local self-administration.

On her part, Turkey not only refused to implement the above article but tried its best to eliminate the Greek element from the islands. With the exception of a short interval between 1951 and 1963, the teaching of the Greek language was forbidden on Imvros and Tenedos.

A critical factor that forced the Greek population to leave the islands was the installation of an open prison for criminals from continental Turkey. In this way, Ankara violated the provisions of Lausanne Treaty by expropriating 95% of arable land belonging to the Greeks of Imvros.

The result of this policy was the reduction of the exclusively Hellenic population of Imvros from 8,000 in 1922 to 400 inhabitants today. Tenedos suffered a similar reduction as its Hellenic population numbered 5,320 people in 1922 and no more than 100 today.

AS TURKEY steams towards the start of European Union Accession talks in October, Istanbul's Greeks say the country's laws continue to discriminate against minorities.

The 2,000-member community has complained bitterly that new laws designed to protect the property rights of religious minorities have done nothing to help them to retrieve hundreds of properties expropriated by the state over several decades.

Members of the Greek minority charge that properties confiscated over the years by the state's General Directorate of Foundations are being sold off to third parties in order to prevent the dwindling community from regaining their property under EU rules in the future.

Greeks claim that a new law due to be tabled in May continues to discriminate against religious minorities. That view is shared by the Turkey Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), a non-governmental organisation, which says the draft bill does not meet the EU's Copenhagen criteria and demands that minorities at least be compensated for confiscated properties. TESEV argues that the draft bill tramples on the basic rights of ownership and of association, and that it unacceptably allows the state to fire an entire board of directors of a foundation.

"You cannot take a community's property, just because the community does not have enough people to create a governing body. The state says that if you can't hold board elections, the real estate is ungoverned, so the state declares it state-occupied (mazbut) and grabs it," Dimitris Frangopoulos, the retired principal of Istanbul's historic Zografeion Lyceum told the Athens News.

The most recent property seizure was that of a huge, decrepit wooden structure that once served as an orphanage in the upscale resort of Prinkipos island, the only property that belonged directly to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Turkish supreme court revoked the title of the patriarchate, claiming that in 1936 the orphanage foundation was registered as owner, and not the patriarchate, which acquired title to the land in 1902.

The state foundations' directorate took over the administration of the enormous prime property in 1997, after the patriarchate tried to make a deal to build a 300-room resort hotel there. The patriarchate is planning an appeal to the European Court.

Foundations under siege

All of the property of the Greek communities of Istanbul - their churches, monasteries, schools, community centres and other communal real estate - are owned by minority foundations that fall under the authority of the state's General Directorate of Foundations (GDF) in Ankara. For decades the foundations have laboured under restrictive laws. A 1935 law required the minorities to register all their foundation properties in the land registry. Title to properties not registered then or acquired later is not recognised, and most have been expropriated by the state.

In 1974, the Turkish supreme court ruled that foundations could not acquire any real estate, a decision that blocked Greek pious foundations from legally gaining title to real-estate donations or bequests from faithful. Thus, properties bequeathed to Greek foundations from 1936 onward were seized by the state, and the wills of Greek donors were annulled.

A 2003 law designed to harmonise Turkey's legislation with that of the EU reversed the 1974 law, allowing non-Muslim foundations to acquire real estate - though the reversal was not retroactive. Greek foundations submitted 1,647 applications for the state to recognise their ownership of as many pieces of Istanbul real properties. Of these, according to Metropolitan Bishop Meliton of Philadelphia, who handled the matter on behalf of the patriarchate, only 390 were initially recognised by the state, while another 200 were recognised on appeal. "The law does not effectively protect minority property rights. It recognises only property declared in 1936," Meliton told the Athens News, referring to the land registry law.

But even that law does not wholly protect the foundations that complied. It allows the state to confiscate real estate if a foundation has ceased the active pursuit of charitable activity. "I argued that this is not applicable to non-Muslim foundations," law professor Ata Sakmar, the attorney for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, told the Athens News in an exclusive interview.

The patriarchate has coordinated the efforts to save the properties of the Greek minority, which views the church as its sole pillar of spiritual and moral support. Sakmar has marshalled legal arguments from as far afield as the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, under which Greece and Turkey agreed to protect minority foundations.

Indeed, under article 40 of the treaty, the recognised Greek minority is granted the right to independently administer its own foundations. But the provision remained a dead letter, and the state has systematically intervened in the financial management of minority foundations and regularly dissolves their governing boards.

Sakmar said that the chief of the Directorate of Foundations claims that "the government is doing its best and that minorities are never happy with what is given".

"I have to say that the reasons of refusal to register some lands were correct," Sakmar continued, "because some of the properties we applied for were already sold [by the state]. The legal way to take them back is to go to court, if possible. Secondly, we applied to register some properties which were supposed to be owned by the Greek foundations, but we were not able to produce any evidence of such ownership. Almost half of our applications were hopeless, because we could not prove - with electricity or phone bills or tax receipts - that these properties were used by the foundations," he said.

Sakmar says 45 foundations have been taken over by the state due to lack of minority residents in the area. He notes that this is due largely to the exodus of Greeks in 1964, when Turkey deported several thousands of Greek citizens who had been living in Istanbul under a prior bilateral agreement. "This is the biggest problem for Greeks: If they have all the rights to acquire property and the state can take over the administration, their rights are not guaranteed," he says.

EU finds fault

The European Commission's last report on Turkey's progress, in October 2004, noted the deficiencies of new laws as far as protecting minority properties. "Religious foundations continue to be subject to the interference of the Directorate-General for Foundations, which is able to dissolve the foundations, seize their properties, dismiss the trustees without a judicial decision and intervene in the management of their assets and accountancy," read the report. The commission was also critical of the new draft law.

The commission also found fault with a June 2004 law meant to address the problems regarding the election of foundation boards, "which if not held, or not held on time, can threaten their existence and lead to the confiscation of their properties." Because minority communities have died out in certain areas, the new law allowed for the enlargement of the geographical area in which elections of a foundation board could be held, but only to the adjacent province. Equally importantly, the commission noted that the law left it to the discretion of local authorities whether or not to enlarge the electoral district, leaving the fate of a foundation to the whims of state functionaries.

The Greek community refused to hold board elections under the new law so as to avoid setting a precedent.

The desperation and disgust of the aged teacher Frangopoulos reflects that of the entire Greek minority. "I as a Greek want to donate my property to a Greek pious foundation. What right do you have to take it away? It belongs to the Greek community. This is my land! The era when we said 'Slay me so that I can become a saint' is over," he says

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The Anatolian Greeks were not in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a homogeneous community.


In the far northeast, there were the very ancient Greek-speaking Orthodox communities of the Pontus.

In the interior, and especially in the Konya vilayet, Orthodox communities existed where the Greek language had been supplanted by the Turkish, a process which had begun with the establishment of the Turks in Anatolia and which only the widespread and conscious Greek nationalist and educational revival of the nineteenth century began to halt. These were the Karamanli Christians, named after Karaman, the former Turkish principality of Konya. Their knowledge of Greek was confined to the alphabet; their books were curiously produced in the Turkish language written in Greek characters? In contrast with the Orthodox Greeks of the coastal regions, they were distinguishable from the Muslims neither in occupation, class, nor racial stock, but only in religion.

The disappearance of the Greek language before the Turkish began early and continued into the present century. The traveller Leake, who visited Asia Minor in 1800, wrote that 'the generality of the Cappadocian Greeks are ignorant of their own language and use the Turkish in the church-service'."

In 1816 a correspondent wrote to the British and Foreign Bible Society, formed twelve years earlier to promote the dissemination of the scriptures, that 'the only language in use among the Angora Christiians, is the Turkish, which they are unable to read in its proper character. Some Bibles in the Turkish language, but in Armenian or Greek letters, would be very acceptable there.' "
In the mid-nineteenth century there were communities of Karamanli Turkish-speaking Christians in most of the towns of western Anatolia.'' It was not from them but from the Greekspeaking bourgeois communities of the great cities – Constantinople and Smyrna - that the impetus for the nineteenth-century nationalist, educational and cultural revival came. The Kararnanli communities were the raw material on which Greekspeaking Greeks could work, first and foremost by teaching them their proper language. The Karamanlides were keen to learn.

A French traveller, invited to attend the class of the local school teacher in Isparta found 'des ecoliers B barbe grise, des pauvres vieillards, des p6res et grandptres qui venaient A l'tcole tpeler l'alphabet de leur langue maternelle avec leurs petits enfants'.

The third group of Greeks in Asia Minor was the relatively compact population of Smyrna and the western coastal strip with its historic towns. This community was variegated, ranging from the peasant farmer working in vines, currants or olives, through a large middle class of clerks, shopkeepers and salaried men, to the educated class of doctors, teachers, lawyers and prosperous traders who were at the heart of the nationalist movement and who had more in common with their counterparts in Constantinople, Alexandria or Liverpool than with the Karamanli Christians of the far interior. It was through these men, often immigrants from the Greek kingdom, that the Greek language and the Great Idea were propagated.

The descriptions of the Greek communities of Asia Minor left by nineteenth-century travellers give an impression of energy, mobility and life within a still ordered and hierarchical social and communal structure.

Source:
Michael Llewellyn Smith, Ionian Vision, 1973, Penguim Books, pages 27-28