Archdiocese of America: The US government should be concerned about the conversion of the Monastery of Chora
The Orthodox Archdiocese of America strongly condemned the conversion of the Monastery of Chora in Istanbul into a mosque and underlined that the US government “should be concerned about these developments.”
It is noted that moves like this one “contravene a long-recognized principle of complete separation of Church and State” and also “have the potential to undermine the human rights and freedoms as well as to sanction the weaponization of religion.”
“It is with a heavy heart that we received the news of the Turkish Fovernment’s official announcement of the conversion of the Monastery of Chora, a beacon of cultural heritage open to all, from a museum to a mosque, where the brilliant iconography is now covered for an alien purpose,” Archdiocese of America said in a statement on Wednesday.
As it is reminded, this decision, follows upon the seizure and re-conversion to a mosque of Hagia Sophia and it “strikes a discordant note in the symphony of mutual respect and understanding among people of all faiths.”
“We call on the Turkish Government to reconsider the decision to convert the Chora Monastery, recognizing the gravity of this action and its implications, especially since the world center of Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is located in Istanbul, and in a country where many of citizens belong to other religions and denominations,” the Archdiocese of America said.
Four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, on Monday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remotely presided over a ceremony for the reopening of the Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, as a mosque.
