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Athens News Agency - April 4, 1998
Athens protests latest desecration of Orthodox cemetery in Turkey
Athens, 4/4/1998 (ANA)
The Greek foreign ministry yesterday lodged a strong protest with Turkey
over the recent desecration of a Greek Orthodox cemetery in Istanbul.
The adviser of the ministry's directorate for Greek-Turkish affairs,
Georgios Avgoustis, summoned an official of the Turkish embassy in Athens
and conveyed the government's "extreme displeasure" about the vandalism
itself and the fact that the perpetrators remain at large "just as those
responsible for desecrating churches and cemeteries of the Greek community
in Turkey also remain at large".
Main opposition New Democracy party yesterday called on the government to
protest to international organisations over the desecration. The government
on Thursday described the vandalism as a "barbaric act" and called on Ankara
to "deal decisively with such deplorable acts".
Vandals desecrated dozens of graves in the Greek cemetery in Istanbul early
Tuesday, breaking marble slabs and scattering beheaded skeletons.
ND deputy Panayiotis Psomiadis, in a motion, urged the government to lodge
protests with the European Union, NATO and Washington.
He also called on Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos to brief Parliament on
what steps the government had taken on the issue.
Vandals desecrated the Greek cemetery at Neohorio on the Bosporus in
September 1993, while last year another Greek cemetery in the Istanbul
suburb of Kantili was the target of vandals and the Orthodox Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople was the target of a bomb attack for the
third time in recent years. In January, the sexton of the Agios Therapon
Church in Istanbul was found murdered.
No arrests were ever made. Spyridon urges US condemnation: Archbishop of
America Spyridon urged members of the US Congress as well as national, civic
and religious leaders in the United States to respond to the latest
desecration against a Greek Orthodox cemetery in Istanbul.
Earlier this week, more than 70 graves in the Greek Orthodox cemetery of
Agios Eleftherios in the Kurtulus region of Istanbul were vandalised.
Spyridon urged the political and spiritual leadership in the United States
to come to the defence of the faithful and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople, the worldwide centre of Orthodox Christianity. He also
addressed a letter to US President Bill Clinton.
"Mr. President, this most recent attack upon even the dead causes great pain
to all people. I need to ask: 'What is the sin of those who repose in the
hope of Resurrection? What is the sin of those fathers and mothers who lay
at peace and cause no offense?' Ultimately, where is the righteousness in
attacking the bones which sanctify the earth in which they were placed?" a
portion of the letter reads.
In a public statement, Archbishop Spyridon said "I am shaken and very
concerned regarding the recent desecration of more than 70 Greek Orthodox
graves in Istanbul, Turkey. In the very recent past the compound of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate has been bombed, resulting in casualties and
property damage, a church was broken into and a sexton was murdered, and now
even those who lie in the tombs have been attacked."
This was the third incident in four months in Istanbul. On December 3, 1997,
a bomb attack against the Patriarchal compound in the Phanar district of
Istanbul seriously injured a deacon and damaged the Patriarchal Cathedral.
On Jan. 13, the Church of Agios Therapon was pillaged and the sexton was
murdered. There was also an incident on the island of Imvros, a one-time
predominately Greek Orthodox isle, where the Church of the Annunciation was
robbed and vandalised.
[ Athens News Agency - April 4, 1998 ]
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