The Story of Christianity in Turkey - Part I

It is an astounding and humbling thing to have stood in places where so much early Christian history was lived. The land now known as Turkey is full of places notable in the New Testament and the first millenium of church history--and even more, if we took the time to acknowledge the people, places, and kingdoms in Turkey which are important in the Old Testament. I'll have time and space to mention only some of them here.

Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia (then a name of a Roman province in modern Turkey), Pamphylia, and Phrygia are among the regions named in Acts 2, where the story of the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit and miraculous preaching of the gospel in various languages is reported. They are all regions in modern Turkey.

Below are photos of the ruins of the magnificent ancient city of Ephesus. Left to right, top to bottom, we see the Temple of Trajan, the column-lined main street (paved with marble), the huge ampitheatre, and one of the three greatest libraries in the ancient world (along with Alexandria, Egypt and Pergamon, not far from Ephesus.)

We were there--and so was St. Paul. Born and raised in Tarsus in southern Turkey, Paul preached the gospel at numerous places in Turkey on his three missionary journeys. Two of those journeys began in Antioch, near the Syrian border in southern Turkey--an important early Christian center. Two of those communities, Ephesus and the churches of Galatia, are recipients of letters included in our New Testament. Paul spent extended periods of time there, proclaiming the gospel and encouraging those young, fragile churches to remain faithful. (We need to remember that, for three centuries, Christians were in a tiny and suspect minority; the western half ofTurkey, like much of the Mediterranean world, practiced the paganism of the ancient Greeks and Romans and gave divine status to the Emperor.) Two of the communities in which Paul preached, Ephesus and Pergamom, are among the seven churches--all in western Turkey, near the Aegean Sea--which are addressed in the book of Revelation. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (there's an interesting story about that in Acts 19!), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Also in Ephesus, as we noted above, were other temples, that magnificent library, and a huge theatre--a common feature in ancient Greek and Roman cities. Clearly, Ephesus was a prominent city in Paul's time.

Ephesus is important not only as one of the churches in which Paul was a significant figure, but as the legendary home of the Apostle John and the Virgin Mary after the death of Jesus. High on a hill above Ephesus stands this shrine, believed by many to be the home of Mary. (I'm skeptical, but that's another story.) Elsewhere in the city are the ruins (destroyed in a 7th century earthquake and never rebuilt) of a basilica dedicated to St. John. Below are a photos of a reconstructed model of the basilica and of the ruins.

Paul was also in Pergamon, and so were we. The ancient city, high on a hill, overlooks a large, fertile valley where a bustling modern city now lies. Here are some of the sites of Pergamon. In addition, the photo of the arches at the top of this post, which were actually originally part of an underground support system for a temple, is also from Pergamon.

In my previous post, I commented on the churches in the region of Cappadocia, and the long history of "underground" Christianity there. Three important early teachers in the church, prominent at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea (325 A.D.), also in Turkey, lived in Cappadocia and are known to church history as the "Cappadocian Fathers"--Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Brenda and I were there, in Cappadocia, where those revered Fathers lived and taught centuries ago!

We were also in modern Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast. Nearby is the city of Myra. Did you know it was the home of "Santa Claus"? The historical St. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra in the late third and early fourth centuries A.D. He is widely revered for his piety, humility, and compassion for the poor. He is especially remembered for his gifts to children of poor families.

Turkey is home to one of the most magnificent churches ever built, the famous Hagia Sophia (or Aya Sophia) in Istanbul; the Greek name means "Holy Wisdom". The Emperor Theodosius ordered and oversaw its construction in the late 4th century A.D. In fact, Aya Sophia and the Church of St. John in Ephesus (6th century) are two of the ten largest Christian churches ever built! Of course, as you may know, Constantinople (as it was known for 1,000 years as capital of the East Roman Empire) was conquered by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1453. Subsequently, Aya Sophia was converted into a mosque--hence the minarets you see surrounding the imposing structure.

Also among Turkey's important contributions to the history of Christianity is that it was the site of the first eight of the 21 general councils of the church. These councils, gatherings of bishops from the universal church, have been convened (often, but not always, by the Pope) at crucial times throughout the church's history to settled disputed matters of doctrine and church practice. The first, at Nicea (325 A.D.) has given its name to one of the church's core expressions of the faith, the Nicene Creed. One other council was held at Nicea (787 A.D.), one at Ephesus (381 A.D.), one at Chalcedon (451 A.D.), and four at Constantinople (381, 553, 680-81, and 869 A.D.). In Constantinople, the bishops gathered at Aya Sophia, behind this marble gate, at the end of a concourse in the upper gallery of the basilica:

Well, thanks for taking the time to review with me some of the reasons why Turkey is so important to Christian history. What a blessing it was to visit some of those sites previously known to me only as faraway places with unusual names mentioned in the Bible. Being there, in person, at some of those places, and seeing the context of some key Christian figures, has helped me to feel more personally engaged with the long and deep Christian tradition. For this reason and others, I am grateful for the opportunity I had to visit Turkey!

Now, you may have noticed the title of this post includes the note that this is "Part 1". If you think that means there will be a Part 2, you are correct! More to follow...