Compiled by Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
Boise, Idaho
U.S.A.
History Of Asia Minor: 1894-1923
During 1894-1923 the Ottoman Empire conducted a policy of Genocide of
the Christian population living within its extensive territory. The
Sultan, Abdul Hamid, first put forth an official governmental policy of
genocide against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1894.
Systematic massacres took place in 1894-1896 when Abdul savagely
killed 300,000 Armenians throughout the provinces. Massacres recurred,
and in 1909 government troops killed, in the towns of Adana alone, over
20,000 Christian Armenians.
When WW1 broke out the The Ottoman Empire was ruled by the “Young
Turk” dictatorship which allied itself with Germany. Turkish government
decided to eliminate the whole of the Christian population of Greeks,
Armenians, Syrians and Nestorians. The government slogan, “Turkey for
the Turks”, served to encourage Turkish civilians on a policy of ethnic
cleansing.
The next step of the Armenian Genocide began on 24 April 1915 with
the mass arrest, and ultimate murder, of religious, political and
intellectual leaders in Constantinople and elsewhere in the empire.
Then, in every Armenian community, a carefully planned Genocide
unfolded: Arrest of clergy and other prominent persons, disarmament of
the population and Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army,
segregation and public execution of leaders and able-bodied men, and the
deportation to the deserts of the remaining Armenian women, children
and elderly. Renowned historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that “the crime was
concerted very systematically for there is evidence of identical
procedure from over fifty places.”
The Genocide started from the border districts and seacoasts, and
worked inland to the most remote hamlets. Over 1.5 million Armenian
Christians, including over 4,000 bishops and priests, were killed in
this step of the Genocide.
The Greek Christians, particularly in the Black Sea area known as
Pontus, who had been suffering from Turkish persecutions and murders all
the while, saw the Turks turn more fiercely on them as WW1 came to a
close. The Allied Powers, at a peace conference in Paris in 1919,
rewarded Greece for her support by inviting Prime Minister Venizelos to
occupy the city of Smyrna with its rich hinterlands, and they placed the
province under Greek control. This action greatly angered the Turks.
The Greek occupation was a peaceful one but drew immediate fire from
Turkish forces in the outlying areas. When the Greek army farmed out to
protect its people, a full-fledged war broke out between Greece and
Turkey (the Greco-Turkish war).
The Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920 to end WW1 and which provided
for an independent Armenia, was never ratified. The treaty’s terms
changed not long after the ink dried as England, France and Italy each
began secretly bargaining with Mustafa Kemel (Ataturk) in order to gain
the right to exploit oil fields in the Mozul (now Iraq). Betrayed by the
Allied Powers, the Greek military front, after 40 long months of war,
collapsed and retreated as the Turks began again to occupy Asia Minor.
September 1922 signaled the end of the Greek and Armenian presence in
the city of Smyrna. On 9 September 1922, the Turks entered Smyrna; and
after systematically murdering the Armenians in their own homes, the
forces of Ataturk turned on the Greeks whose numbers had swelled, with
the addition of refugees who had fled their villages in Turkey’s
interior, to upwards of 400,000 men, women and children.
The conquering Turks went from house to house, looting, pillaging,
raping and murdering the population. Finally, when the wind had turned
so that it was blowing toward the sea so that the small Turkish quarter
at the rear of the city was not in danger, Turkish forces, led by their
officers, poured kerosene on the buildings and homes of the Greek and
Armenian sectors and set them afire. Thus, any remaining live
inhabitants of the city were flushed out to be caught between a wall of
fire and the sea. The pier of Smyrna became a scene of final desperation
as the approaching flames forced many thousands to jump to their death
or to be consumed by fire.
The Allied warships and shore patrol of the French, British and
American military were eyewitnesses to the events. George Horton, the
American Consul in Smyrna, likened the finale at Smyrna to the Roman
destruction of Carthage. He is quoted in Smyrna (1922, written by
Marjorie Dobkin) as saying: Yet there was not fleet of Christian
battleships at Carthage looking on a situation for which their
governments were responsible.” This horrible act unleashed the last
phase of the genocide against the Christians of Turkish Asia Minor.
On 9 September 1997, a series of speakers and memorial services,
honoring the memory of the 3.5 million Christians who were murdered by
Turkish persecutions from 1894-1923, were held in the greater Baltimore
Washington area. The memorial service was conducted by the choirs of St.
Mary’s Armenian Church, St. Katherine’s Greek Orthodox Church, Fr.
George Alexson of St. Katherine’s, Fr. Vertanes Katayjian of St. Mary’s
and other Orthodox clergy.
The 75th anniversary of the Christian Holocaust was memorialized on 9
September 1997, the date in 1922 of the destruction of the city of
Smyrna. This memorial honors the memory of over 3.5 million Christians
who were murdered by Turkish persecutions from 1894-1923. Not only was
this the memorial of the Holocaust of Smyrna (now Izmir) and the
martyrdom of Smyrna’s Metropolitan Chrysostomos, but also of the 3.5
million Christians who perished during the first Holocaust of this
century. But the events of 1922 are not an isolated incident. The
atrocities committed by Turkish forces against a civilian population
began before WW1 and have never ended. This event seeks to expose the
continuum of a Turkish campaign of persecution, deportation, and murder
designed to rid Asia of its Christian populace.
GREEKS
1914 400,000 conscripts perished in forced labor brigades
1922 100,000 massacred or burned alive in Smyrna
1916-1922 350,000 Pontions massacred or killed during forced deportations
1914-1922 900,000 perish from maltreatment, starvation and massacres; total of all other areas of Asia Minor
TOTAL: 1,750,000 Greek Christians martyred 1914-1922
ARMENIANS
1894-1896 300,000 massacred
1915-1916 1,500,000 perish in massacres and forced deportations (with subsidiaries to 1923)
1922 30,000 massacred or burned alive in Smyrna
TOTAL: 1,800,000 Armenian Christians martyred 1894-1923
SYRIANS AND NESTORIANS
1915-1917 100,000 Christians massacred
The native population of Asia Minor traces its Christian roots to the
early days of Christianity. the Armenians, an ancient people, trace
their origins back 2500 years. In 301 AD. the Armenian King Dftad
declared Christianity as the kingdom’s official religion, making Armenia
the first Christian political state in the world. The migration of
Greek tribes to Asia Minor began just before 2,000 BC and the Greeks
built dozens of cities such as Smyrna, Phocaea, Pergamon, Ephesus and
Byzantium (Constantinople). The native inhabitants of Asia Minor, among
the first to accept the message of Christianity, were later to be
persecuted and uprooted from their lands because of that same faith.
Turkish tribes plagued the region. Later another tribe, the Oyuz Turks
who embraced Islam and ultimately produced the Ottoman Turks, conquered
Persia, the Caliphate of Baghdad, and then the whole area presently
occupied by Syria, Iraq and Palestine.
Under the Ottoman Empire the Christians suffered a steady decline.
Forced conversions to Islam, the abduction of children to serve in the
fanatical Janissary corps, persecutions and oppression reduced the
Christian population. Oppression intensified, leading to Genocide.
Christian clergy were a constant target of Turkish persecution,
particularly once the 1894 policy of Armenian genocide had been declared
by sultan Abdul Hamid.
Victims of horrible torture, many Orthodox clergy were martyred for
their faith. Among the first was Metropolitan Chrysostomos who was
martyred, not just to kill a man but, to insult a sacred religion and an
ancient and honorable people. Chrysostomos was enthroned as
Metropolitan of Smyrna on 10 May 1910. Metropolitan Chrysostomos
courageously opposed the anti Christian rage of the turks and sought to
raise international pressure against the persecution of Turkish
Christians. He wrote many letters to European leaders and to the western
press in an effort to expose the genocide policies of the Turks. In
1922, in unprotected Smyrna, Chrysostomos said to those begging him to
flee: “It is the tradition of the Greek Church and the duty of the
priest to stay with his congregation.”
On 9 September crowds were rushing into the cathedral for shelter
when Chrysostomos, pale from fasting and lack of sleep, led his last
prayer. The Divine Liturgy ended as Turkish police came to the church
and led Chrysostomos away. The Turkish General Nouredin Pasha, known as
the “butcher of Ionia”, first spat on the Metropolitan and informed him
that a tribunal in Angora (now Ankara) had already condemned him to
death. A mob fell upon Chrysostomos and tore out his eyes. Bleeding
profusely, he was dragged through the streets by his beard. He was
beaten and kicked and parts of his body were cut off. All the while
Chrysostomos, his face covered with blood, prayed: “Holy Father, forgive
them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Every now and then,
when he had the strength, he would raise his hand and bless his
persecutors; a Turk, realizing what the Metropolitan was doing, cut off
his hand with a sword. Metropolitan Chrysostomos was then hacked to
pieced by the angry mob.
Among the hundreds of Armenian clergy who were persecuted and
murdered were Bishop Khosrov Behrigian and Very Reverend Father Mgrdich’
Chghladian.
Bishop Behrigian (1869-1915) was born in Zara and became the primate
for the Diocese of Caesarea/Kayseri in 1915. He was arrested by Turkish
police upon his return from Etchmiadzin where he had just been
consecrated bishop. Informed of his fate, the bishop asked for a bullet
to the head. Deliberately ignoring his request, the police tied him to a
“yataghan” where sheep were butchered an then proceeded to hack his
body apart while he was still alive.
Father Chghladian was born in Tatvan. In May 1915, as part of the
campaign of mass arrests, deportations and murders, the priest was
tortured and displayed in a procession, led by sheiks and dervishes
while accompanied by drums, through the streets of Dikranagerd. Once the
procession returned to the mosque, in the presence of government
officials, the sheiks poured oil over the priest and burned him alive.
Four of the martyred bishops who were murdered between 1921-1922 are
today elevated to sainthood in the Greek Orthodox Church: They are, in
addition to Metropolitan Chrysostomos, Bishops Efthimios, Gregorios and
Ambrosios.
Bishop Efthimios of Amasia was captured by the Turkish police and
tortured daily for 41 days. In the last days of his life he chanted his
own funeral memorial until finally dying in his cell on 29 May 1921.
Three days later a written order for his execution arrived from Mustafa
Kemal (Ataturk).
Metropolitan Gregorios of Kydonion remained with his church until the
end, helping 20,000 of his 35,000 parishioners escape to Mytilene and
other free parts of Greece. On 3 October 1922, the remaining 15,000
Orthodox Christians were executed; the Metropolitan was saved in order
to be buried alive.
Metropolitan Ambrosios of Moshonesion, along with 12 priests and
6,000 Christians, were sent by the Turks on a forced deportation march
to Central Asia Minor. All of them perished on the road, some slain by
Turkish irregulars and civilians, the remainder left to die of
starvation. Bishop Ambrosios died on 15 September 1922 when Turkish
police nailed horseshoes to his feet and then cut his body into pieces.
“I was five or six years old in 1922, and I still remember the songs
of Akrita and the mourning of the Greek women who carried baskets full
of severed heads down from the mountains. I will never forget the women
who suddenly realized that one of the heads in the basket she carried
was that of her son.” – Constantine Koukides, refugee from Pontius
“I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy
or pity, men, women, and children belonging to the Polish speaking race.
It is only in this manner we can acquire the vital territory which we
need. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?” –
Adolf Hitler, 22 August 1939.
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