PodcastTurkey set to open first church in republic's history
In the centenary year of the Republic of Turkey, St. Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church will be opened on Oct. 8 as the first church built since the proclamation of the republic.
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St. Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church in Istanbul, whose foundation was laid in 2019 in a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will be inaugurated on Oct. 8 as the first church built in the history of the Republic of Turkey, according to reporting from state-run Anadolu Agency.
The church was built on the site of the Latin Catholic Cemetery in Bakırköy district’s Yeşilköy neighborhood which is highly populated by the country’s Syriac community.
Sait Susin, President of the Syriac Ancient Foundation of Istanbul, noted that the construction process of the church took 10 years, of which seven years were spent in a number of formalities and procedures.
Susin said, "We were going to open the building on Feb. 19, but Feb. 6 Earthquakes stopped us. It was a great pain for the country. It would have been out of the question for us to open in such an environment. Afterwards, Ramadan and holidays intervened, so we had to wait for this date."