Turkey

Turkey, long the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish Republic, Turkish Türkiye Türkiye Cumhuriyeti pronunciation and form, is a country located on the border of Asia and Europe. It has borders with Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan (Nakhichevan), Iran, Iraq and Syria. It is a parliamentary republic whose official language is Turkish. Turkey is bordered to the north by the Black Sea, to the west by the Aegean Sea and south through the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea: the Levantine Basin. Eastern Thrace (Europe) and Anatolia (Asia) are separated by the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Bosporus on the east and west of the Dardanelles (the three inlets form what is called the Straits ).

Turkey has 3% of its territory in Europe (Eastern Thrace). Its geographical location astride two continents, at the crossroads of routes Russia - Mediterranean and Balkans - Middle East, on the ancient Silk Road, today on the pipeline route of strategic importance, Turkey has always been a hub of economic, cultural and religious exchanges. She made the link between the East and the West, where its strategic leadership position which reinforces the view of the political events that have shaken the Middle East as the oil market and tensions linked to the problem water.

Modern Turkey was founded under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923 on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire defeated by the First World War, is a unitary constitutional secular democratic republic,. Since then, she has never ceased to be closer to the West by joining, for example, cooperation organizations: NATO, OECD, OSCE, Council of Europe or the G20. Turkey is an official candidate since 1963 to enter the European Economic Community (EEC), the current European Union (EU), with which it has concluded a customs union agreement in 1995, in force since 1996 Negotiations for the entry of Turkey into the EU is officially underway since 2005 same time, Turkey has maintained close ties with countries with a majority Muslim population as it, as well as the Middle East and Asia Central including participation in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Organization for Economic Cooperation, and the Turkic Council. In 2014, at the summit in Dili (East Timor), Turkey became an associate observer of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP)

Anatolia (Asia Minor) is one of the cradles of Christianity. According to the Acts of the Apostles, it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. Saint Paul of Tarsus and originates he traveled extensively in Asia Minor: Antakya, Konya, Ankara (capital of Galatians), Ephesus. The latter city is attached to the memory of John. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary spent her last years near Ephesus in Selçuk. The Cave of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is located near Ephesus as the name suggests. The Seven Churches of Asia or Seven Churches of the Apocalypse are seven mentioned in the book of the Apocalypse in the New Testament diocesan communities (episcopal seats were located in Asia Minor (Anatolia), now in Turkey.) St. Nicolas, who was born in Patara and died in Myra, was a native of the region of Lycia in Anatolia. The seven ecumenical councils (Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople II, Constantinople III, Nicea II) gathered in Turkey today (at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon.) Two of the five churches of Pentarchy (Church Constantinople and Antioch) are in what is now Turkey. There are remnants of early Christianity (Cappadocia) and medieval (in the region of Trabzon.)

In the early twentieth century, the Christian Armenians living in eastern Turkey on the Armenian plateau and the Greek Orthodox on the coast of the Aegean Sea as well as the northern and southern coasts (Trabzon, Antalya, Izmir ...). During the First World War, most Armenians were killed, deported or fled during the Armenian Genocide. The Greeks first fled after the burning of their homes by turques23 forces during the Greco-Turkish War of 1920-1922, were then subject to an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey between 1923 and 1927 with a transfer of Greek populations from Anatolia to Greece and Turkey populations from Greece to Turkey.

The number of Christians in Turkey are not so far beyond the two thousand percent, although the largest city, Istanbul, is home to two prestigious patriarchates: the Greeks and Armenians. Armenians are the largest Christian community in the country (60 000 including 45 000 Istanbul24), divided into three communities: Apostolic (57,000), Catholics (3000) and Protestants (500) in Istanbul, Antakya and Kayseri). Also exemplary Syriacs (15,000 of which 2,000 Catholics in Istanbul and Mardin), Chaldeans (10,000, mostly from Iraq), the Latins (5000, concentrated in Istanbul and Izmir, small communities Bursa, Konya, Mersin, Tarsus, Antakya, Iskenderun, Samsun, Trabzon), Greek Orthodox (3000, Istanbul, Antakya, Gökçeada and Bozcaada).


 It should also be added the "new" Protestant or Muslim converts to evangelical Protestantism, which are the number of 5000.