a/ The expulsion of the Hellenic community of Constantinople in 1955.....which reduced the Hellenic presence in the heart of Orthodox world just a fraction.
FROM ABOUT 200.000 GREEKS AFTER 1922 IN TURKEY (ABOUT 120.000 IN CONSTANTIOPLE) - TODAY ABOUT ONLY 2.000-3.000 GREEKS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
b/ The policy of Religion or Language of the 1920's.
As a matter of fact, Hellas abides to the Treaty of Lausanne where the Muslim (mostly ethnic Turkish) population of Thrace is thriving and increasing, as opposed to the Turkish violation of the treaty with the murder, rape, destruction of property and desecration of graves, and ultimately, expulsion in 1955.
MOSLEMS (MOSTLY TURKS IN GREEK THRACE):
1922 - ABOUT 70.000-80.0000
TODAY ABOUT 120.000
GREEKS IN TURKEY:
1922 - ABOUT +200.000
TODAY ABOUT 2.000-3.000
ARE THE GREEKS OR THE TURKS "DEVILS"?
------------------------------------------------
POGROM IN CONSTANTINOPLE 1955 AGAINST GREEKS:
Breaking in a Greek store in Istanbul
Looting of a Greek store in Istanbul.
The day after: Scenes of looting and destruction.
Patriarch Athenagoras in front of the burned Church
of St. Constantine of Psammathos.
The night of 6th to 7th of September 1955, a Turkish mob in Constantinople, organized and directed by state authorities, conducted a vicious pogrom against the Greek Community of Constantinople. The events of 1955 were the barbaric means with which the Turkish government aimed for the elimination and Ethnic Cleansing of the Hellenic community in Turkey.
A Brief Look at the Events of September 6-7 1955
In 1955, the Cyprus problem was the most important 'national issue' in Turkey.
At the end of August a conference was arranged in London, with Hellas (Greece) and the United Kingdom - the other parties involved - to determine the status of Cyprus. Turkey planned an activity to demonstrate the sensitivity of this problem within the Turkish community.
The newspaper, ISTANBUL EXPRESS (6 September 1955), published the news of the bombing of Ataturk's birthplace in Selanik (Thessaloniki), Hellas. Student protests started the same day. It developed into a nationwide response and within two days, shops, cemeteries and churches belonging to Greeks were destroyed and properties were plundered.
Police, who had initially supported the violence, had to use force to stop it once they realized that they could no longer control it. Martial law was announced in Istanbul (Constantinople). The government declared that the communists were responsible for the violence. Many people known to be leftist, were placed under police supervision.
Later, it was discovered that the events had been planned by the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) and that the bomb had been planted by Oktay Engin, a MIT agent who, in 1992, was Governor of Nevsehir, a Turkish province. (*)
* OZGUR GUNDEM 6-7 September 1992.
The cost to the community was momentous. Out of the half million Hellenes that lived in Constantinople in the 1920's, only some 3,000 mostly senior citizens exist today.
The Ethnic Cleansing was accomplished by gradual political prosecution, as well as pure mindless violence. On September 6th and 7th 1955, the goal of the Turkish state became ever more evident. These are just a few of the horrors the Hellenes of the city lived through:
The above of course does not even include the murders, nor the more than 200 rapes.
Sixteen Hellenes died (the 90-year old Fr. Mantas was burned alive), and thirty two were severely wounded. Hundreds of Hellenes were tortured.
The extent of the barbarism of the Turks does not even end there. With a crazed passion, they set to destroy everything that was Hellenic.
Tombs and thousand year-old temples and monuments were included on their list of destruction. The Patriarchal and other Hellenic cemeteries were desecrated. The dead bodies of Patriarchs were unburied and profaned.
Relics of Saints were burned.
