Eurasianet: Turkish Orthodox Church linked to Hrant Dink murder

PanARMENIAN.Net - According to Turkish Prosecutor's Office, Turkish Orthodox Church, which dates back to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, is linked to Ergenekon radical nationalist movement. The latter is said to have organized a conspiracy, aiming to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, russian.eurasianet.org reported.

Church spokesperson Sevgi Erenerol was arrested in 2008 on charges that include establishing and directing an armed terrorist organization as part of the supposed Ergenekon conspiracy. He is also linked to the persecution of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Though Turkish Orthodox Church makes a minority, it is hostile to other minorities, particularly Armenians.

The Turkish Orthodox Church’s founder, Pavlos Karahisarithis was a Turkish-speaking, Greek Orthodox priest, who, in 1922, at the end of the Greco-Turkish War, broke with the pro-Greece Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the supreme Orthodox patriarchate, and allied himself with victorious Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Atatürk took a personal interest in the Turkish Orthodox Church, and expressed his support. Karahisarithis, meanwhile, took the title Papa (“Pope” in Turkish) Eftim, and later changed his last name to the Turkish family name of Erenerol.