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The Grand Turk
Turkey to Turn Armenian Church into ‘Humor Art Center’
2021-01-03
[Breitbart] The local government in south-central Konya, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
, announced this week that it would turn a fully renovated 19th-century Armenian church into a "humor art house" after barring worshippers from using the church for years, multiple reports revealed Thursday.

Under Islamist President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
, the Ottoman Turkish government has aggressively targeted its Christian minority community and attempted to erase Christian heritage in the country. Erdogan’s most prominent attempt to erase the Christian history of Turkey occurred last year, when he converted the Hagia Sophia, one of Byzantine Christianity’s most important architectural facilities, into a mosque. The conversion process involved removing or covering up priceless Christian art in the former basilica.

According to the Stockholm Center for Freedom, a news organization founded by dissident Ottoman Turkish journalists, the Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church was built in 1859 and boasts an official cultural heritage site designation in Turkey. The Ottoman Turkish government reportedly used the church’s location — the hometown of a medieval Ottoman Turkish "satirist" — as reason to renovate the church, turning it into the "World’s Masters of Humor Art House" and the hub of a greater "humor village." The government has not yet announced a reopening date for the venue.

"Restoration" of the church cost about half a million dollars and ended in 2017, but Ottoman Turkish officials did nothing with the venue until now and did not allow Christians to pray in it.

It is not clear at press time how many Christians live in the area; the Stockholm Center noted an estimated 5,000 Armenians lived in the vicinity around the church historically, prior to the 1915 genocide. PanArmenian.net, a news site that caters to the Armenian community, noted in its report on the Holy Trinity church that, prior to the genocide, "there were four other Armenian educational institutions in the district. Among them, the Surp Stepanos School was famous in all provinces for its superior education quality."
Related:
Konya: 2019-10-15 10 Daesh-linked suspects arrested in Konya
Konya: 2019-07-03 Turkey Seeks Arrest of 122 More for Alleged Coup Links
Konya: 2019-06-19 Turkey Orders Arrest of Dozens More over Alleged Coup Ties
Posted by:trailing wife

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