Reflections From Turkey

By Rev. James M.L. Grace, Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

     At the end of last month, I took a trip to Turkey with a group called the Institute for Interfaith Dialog (IID).  The Institute of Interfaith Dialog (IID) grew out of the need to address the question, "How can citizens of the world live in peace and harmony?" The founding members of the IID knew from personal experience that a discussion on religion and spirituality did not have to digress into confusion, fighting, and anarchy. On the contrary the founding members understood that peace could be achieved by sharing different perspectives by listening to each other from the space of love, respect, tolerance, mercy, and compassion.

     The mission of Institute of Interfaith Dialog comes from the teachings of a Turkish scholar named Fethullah Gülen.  And Fethullah Gulen is an authoritative mainstream Turkish Muslim scholar, thinker, author, poet, opinion leader and educational activist who is for interfaith and intercultural dialogue, science, democracy and spirituality and against violence and turning religion into a political ideology.  He is popular throughout Turkey, and his group have established schools and universities throughout Turkey which teach the principles of love, respect, tolerance, mercy, and compassion.  On our trip we visited some of these schools.

     Turkey is a secular country which was founded in the year 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ankara was selected as the capital of the country.  A lot can be said about Ataturk as a reformer and a modernist, but I don’t have time to say much about him this morning except that he is a widely respected figure throughout Turkey, and is considered the instrument that brought modernization to Turkey at the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

     We first flew to Istanbul, a city which sits literally at the point in which the West (Europe) and the East (Asia) meet.  Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from the year 1299 to 1923.  And the city is very much a blend of Western European architecture and the Mediterranean world.  And it is a blend of religions, primarily Islam and Christianity.   There is a Jewish community in Istanbul, but it is small, and the officials from the Jewish community told us that there were approximately 20,000 Jewish people in all of Turkey, most of which seemed to be in Istanbul.  Some of the sights we saw while in Istanbul included Topkapi palace, which was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans, from 1465 to 1853. The palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments and is a major tourist attraction today. Initial construction started in 1459, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantine Constantinople.

     Another important site we visited was Hagia Sophia, is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum, in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 AD on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque.  During the time of Ataturk, the building was converted to a musuem, and it remains one to this day.

     Across the way from Hagia Sophia is the Sultan Ahmed mosque or “Blue Mosque” named for all the blue tile on the inside.  It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I.  While our group was there, we were invited into the Imam’s office, and we all to talk to him and ask questions. The imam is the leader of a mosque.

     After Istanbul, we flew to Izmir, which lies on the Western coast.  We had dinner with a family who hosted us in their home and you can see some pictures from that dinner.  This is probably a good time to say that we ate really well on this trip.  People hosted dinners for us, they opened their homes to us, they gave us gifts; it was incredible hospitality. 

     Close to Izmir is the ancient Roman city of Ephesus, where we know the apostle Paul travelled.  His letter to the Ephesians was written to the church in Ephesus.  Ephesus hosted one of the seven churches of Asia, addressed in the Book of Revelation of The Bible),[1] and the Gospel of John might have been written here.  According to the New Testament, Ephesus became an important center for early Christianity from the 50s AD. Paul used it as a base and spent there more than two years on his third missionary journey (Acts 19:8, 19:10, 20:31). He became embroiled in a dispute with artisans, whose livelihood depended on selling the statuettes of Artemis in the Temple of Artemis (Acts 19:23–41). He wrote between 53 and 57 A.D. the letter 1 Corinthians from Ephesus (possibly from the "Paul tower" close to the harbor, where he was imprisoned for a short time). Later Paul wrote to the Christian community at Ephesus, according to tradition, while he was in prison in Rome (around 62 A.D.)

     We also visited the House of the Virgin Mary.  According to predominant Christian tradition, Mary was brought to Ephesus by the Apostle John after the Resurrection of Christ and lived out her days there. This is based mainly on the traditional belief that John came to Ephesus combined with the biblical statement that Jesus consigned her to John's care (at the end of John’s Gospel).  The Basilica of St. John was a great church in Ephesus constructed by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. It stands over the believed burial site of St. John, who is identified as the apostle, evangelist (author of the Fourth Gospel) and prophet (author of Revelation).  Emperor Justinian (527-565 AD) believed that a tomb dating from the 300s was John's, so he built a magnificient church on the site in the 500s dedicated to the saint.   The traditional tomb of St. John, located under the main central dome, elevated the site to one of the most sacred sites in the Middle Ages and thousands made pilgrimage here.   The church was not maintained over the years, and was destroyed in the 1402 by a Mongol army.

     Next  we visited the city of Urfa, in Eastern Turkey, close to the Syrian border.  It was one of several cities in the Euphrates-Tigris basin, the cradle of the Mesopotamian civilization. According to Turkish Muslim traditions Urfa (its name since Byzantine days) is the biblical city of Ur, due to its proximity to the biblical village of Harran. However, the Iraqis also claim the city of Ur in southern Iraq, as do many historians and archaeologists. Urfa is also known as the birthplace of Abraham, commemorated by a mosque which contains the cave many devout Muslims believe Abraham was born in.  Outside of this mosque is a beautiful pool with fish that swim in it.  According to tradition in the Koran, the Mesopotamian ruler Nimrod was about to burn Abraham on a funeral pyre, but God turned the fire into water and the burning coals into fish.

     The next day we travelled West to Gazientep, and along the way, we crossed the Euphrates river (show slide).  This we got out of the van to walk across the Euphrates river, and as you can see the water is absolutely beautiful.  We visited a musuem in Gazientep that contained many mosaics from a Roman city called Zeugma.  In 64 BC Zeugma was conquered and ruled by the Roman Empire and the name “Zeugma” means "bridge-passage" or "bridge of boats". The city was on the Silk Road connecting Antioch to China with a quay or pontoon bridge across the river Euphrates.

There have been a lot of excavations done in the area recently, especially because of a dam project that has caused the waters of the Euphrates to slowly rise and flood the ancient city. 

     Our next stop was Kayseri, which was in the region of Cappadocia.  Kayseri, or Caesarea Cappadociae as it was known in Latin, became central in Christianity in the fourth century, when one of the great early church fathers, St. Basil, established a church center there.  The region of Cappadocia, in particular, became a very important area in the early history of the church.  Cappadocia is a region of exceptional natural wonders characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage.  Cappadocia contains several underground cities (date from around 300 AD, largely used by early Christians as hiding places before they became a legitimate religion. The Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caserea (Kayseri) Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil the Great of the 4th century were integral to much of early Christian philosophy and theology.

     One of the areas in Cappadocia we visited was called Goreme, and it was a monastery that contained all sorts of churches carved out of the rock, and you can see the incredible frescoes that were painted on the rock walls.  These churches date from the 1400-1500s.

     What I learned from the trip:

     We’re not as different as we think we are.  Judaism, Christianity, Islam – have a lot of congruence. 

     Trips like this expand my reality.  The world as I understood it before this trip I now understand differently. 

     I am grateful to those people I met along the way, who I shared this experience with.  I have learned so much.  Much more than I could cram into this time, but I trust that in the weeks, months, to come, more will be said.  Our life is a journey, and our journey continues on.

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