Christmas in a Muslim country

I spent the Christmas holiday of 1972 in Istanbul, Turkey, where Europe and Asia meet. A 95% Muslim country, but to it’s great credit, it has a secular government. At that time there were some political kidnappings by groups opposed to US influence, but I felt no threat walking around the city as a fair haired, blue eyed westerner.

Christmas Day was just another day for the locals, and coming from Germany, where I was living at the time, the lack of fir trees and lights was a another reminder that the Turks didn’t give a hoot about our traditions, and why should they. I went to a tourist information bureau and asked for a list of Christian churches, which they readily gave me. There were plenty of them spread all over the city.

I’m not a churchgoer myself, but I was curious to see how much Christian activity was going on in this non-Christian nation. The churches I wandered upon were mostly, Greek, Bulgarian, Armenian Orthodox, Hungarian or Catholic. There was also an Anglican listed but did not find it. Most Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 6, but rent their buildings out to smaller denominations for December 25th celebrations.

All of the churches I found were open for business and Christian worshipers were dressed in their Christmas Day best, mixing freely with the locals, as they went into, or as they left their churches. No one was trying to convert anybody, which keeps the Muslim clerics happy. Christmas in Istanbul was definitely not a Christmas like Germany, or in my hometown of Detroit, but Christians were not harassed and were allowed practice their religion openly.

Istanbul, it used to be called Constantinople (after the Emperor Constantine), when Rome fell, it became the center of the Christian World. The Byzantine’s ruled there from late antiquity to the early middle ages. The Byzantine Empire has a long and complex history. Read it HERE. After a series of wars and divisions, the Ottoman Turks took control of Constantinople in the late 1400s, Ottoman control lasted until 1923, when the Empire chose the losing team during World War One, causing it to be dissolved, then the modern nation of Turkey was founded.

In a matter of the 500 years Constantinople/Istanbul went from the major Christian city, to a major Islamic center, to a secular city, but there is no doubt that despite it’s secular creed, Istanbul is still a Muslim city which boasts one of the finest Mosque’s in Islam, the Blue Mosque. A visit to that beautiful structure, proved to be far more interesting than any of the Christian churches I saw.

History hangs on in Turkey, and the locals who know their history, show respect for Judaism, and the many Christian denominations that are still active, even after the Muslim Ottoman Turk influence. The majority of Turkish women I saw were dressed in a western style. The big difference between an Islamic Republic and the Turkish style of government, is the way it treats it’s women and the way it respects different faiths. A 24 hour stopover I endured in Saudi Arabia highlighted this truth.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

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