An insult
The Turkish government’s decision to turn Hagia Sophia, a World Heritage Site, into a mosque is unacceptable and confrontational.
This action is not only a direct insult to the character of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a link in the overall challenging and aggressive policy of the Turkish government.
The Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales unequivocally condemns this act and appeals to the international community to stop Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dangerous and contentious actions.
We call on the Australian Government to take the initiative in all International Forums to prevent the implementation of this decision which only incites hatred and enmity among the Peoples.
From the Board of Directors of the Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales
Condemnation
The Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne & Victoria strongly condemns the Turkish Republic’s decision to reinstate the World Heritage listed cultural icon – Hagia Sofia (Αγία Σοφία) – back into a Mosque.
Hagia Sofia is a significant cultural monument acknowledged by UNESCO to be of World Significance. It’s complex history plays testament to the symbolic role it plays in the life of many people around the world, including Australians of Greek background.
Hagia Sophia belongs to the whole of humanity and should not be used as a tool of political and nationalistic exploitation.
Greek Community of Melbourne
Petition
I’d like to share with you a petition I started a few days ago with the Pallaconians seeking to have Prime Minister Scott Morrison issue an official statement on behalf of the Australian Government denouncing Erdogan’s Presidential Decree, transforming the Hagia Sophia Museum into a practicing Mosque, rescinded.
Although we have initiated this petition we want to reiterate that it is open to collaboration from all corners of the Greek community here in Melbourne and nationally, we merely wanted to spark a project that we hope will unite all Greeks behind.
The Hagia Sophia is of cultural, historical and religious significance to millions of Christians worldwide. Tens of thousands of Australians visit the Hagia Sophia annually and with over 500,000 Orthodox Christians in Australia alone, this issue is of great significance to us as Australians, of all faiths and backgrounds, in particular the Greek Australian community.
With hundreds of signatures in two days alone, we’re well on track to hit the thousands mark this month. We are in contact with the City of Moreland and the Federal Member for Wills whose support we expect to enjoy very soon, among other media, industry and political stakeholders.
Below is our petition link:
https://www.change.org/HagiaSophiaMuseum
Miltiadis Paikopoulos, President of the Pallaconian Youth
An open letter to Scott Morrison
Dear Prime Minister,
European Union countries, as well as UK, Russia, the US, UNESCO and church leaders around the world were among those who condemned and or expressed their deep concern and disappointment about changing the status of the sixth-century Greek Orthodox Temple of Agia Sophia from a museum for the humanity into a mosque for the Muslims.
The colossal Agia Sophia was built 1,500 years ago as a Greek Orthodox Christian cathedral and was converted into a mosque after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453. The secular Turkish government decided in 1934 to make it a museum, in an effort to demonstrate Turkey’s direction as part of the European society and as a proof of Turkey’s commitment to inclusion and secularism.
The decision of the Turkish President demonstrates disrespect to history pluralism, as well also Christianity and the European culture. The decision also represents a neo-Ottoman tendency to present Turkey as the pillar of the Islamic world.
Millions of Turkish intellectuals and secularists, including Nobel-winner Orhan Pamouk characterised the decision by President Erdogan as an open provocation to the civilised world and protested against the Islamic fundamentalism of the Turkish government. Pamouk rightly expressed the view that “abolishing the status f the Museum to Agia Sophia, Turkey closed any window remaining open to Europe and the world. Contemporary Turkey has now indicated that they wish no ties or links with the West and its legacies…”
Prime Minister,
The Cyprus Community of Melbourne and Victoria along with the members of the Greek Community of Melbourne, strongly condemn this aggressive and irrational decision to change a World Heritage Monument into a Mosque and request the Commonwealth of Australia to publically reprehend and reproach the hostile attitude of the Turkish Government against the Agia Sophia Monument and to what it represented the last 1500 years.
Furthermore, we respectfully urge our Commonwealth Government not to welcome in Australia, the Neo-Ottoman leader, the current President of Turkey, whose presence could inflame public unrest and conflict.
In anticipation of your kind reply,
Stelios Angelodemou, President of the Cyprus Community of Melbourne and Victoria
READ MORE: Australian government urged to condemn Turkey’s desecration of ancient Christian sites
A lost cause
My friends, there is one truth and one truth only. We have many huge problems inside Greece, our spoken Greek language by the people of Greece is getting poorer and is slowly dying , we produce almost nothing. We are losing all our know-how in most industries as we now import almost everything. We train our young people in many professions, where due to the lack of existence or development in many fields and industries , our young graduates in Greece will never find a job in their chosen fields, so we educate and train them at our own expense for the benefit of other countries where they will be forced to migrate.
Also, in opposition to what the Turks are doing with the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, we are playing directly into the hands of the Turks who are using this issue to claim more rights for Muslims in Greece, such as the demands for more “Mosques” in Athens and other Greek cities and much more.
We must completely ignore this issue, what happened 500 years ago is the reality we must now live with and which we must accept. Hagia Sophia now belongs to the Turks, and therefore they can do whatever they like with it.
We need to focus on improving all the weaknesses mentioned above. Also more than ever we must do what we can to protect and promote all of Greece’s rights in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean that are threatened by Turkey.
This issue is a distraction from the many and very serious issues and challenges for our country, do not waste your energy with it!
Savvas Grigoropoulos