Turkic Christians

{{Further|Bulgars|Cumans}}

File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 061.jpg procession of Nestorian clergy in a 7th- or 8th-century wall painting from a church at Karakhoja, Chinese Turkestan]]

The Bulgars, a Turkic semi-nomadic semi-nomadic warrior tribe thrived in the expansive landscapes of the Pontic-Caspian steppe and the Volga region from the 5th to the 7th centuries. Originating from Central Asia, the Bulgars became renowned as skilled equestrians and fierce warriors, adapting to the demands of their environment while establishing a formidable presence in the region. By the 10th century, they began to embrace Christianity, a pivotal transformation that would shape their identity and influence in the broader Eurasian context. The Bulgars’ conversion to Christianity was formalized during the reign of Khan Boris I, who ruled from 852 to 889. Under his leadership, the Bulgars officially adopted Christianity in 865, subsequently embracing Eastern Orthodoxy in 879. This shift was not merely a religious change but a complex interplay of cultural exchanges with the Byzantine Empire and local Eastern Christian traditions. As a result, their Christian identity emerged from a rich tapestry of influences, which significantly impacted their political and cultural relationships with neighboring states and peoples.

The Uyghur Khaganate had established itself by the year 744 AD.{{cite book |last1=Benson |first1=Linda |last2=Svanberg |first2=Ingvar |title=China's Last Nomads: History and Culture of China's Kazaks |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-28519-1 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ooQYDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT35}} Through trade relations established with China, its capital city of Ordu Baliq in central Mongolia's Orkhon Valley became a wealthy center of commerce,{{harvnb|Benson|Svanberg|2016|p=65}} and a significant portion of the Uyghur population abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for a sedentary one. The Uyghur Khaganate produced extensive literature, and a relatively high number of its inhabitants were literate.{{cite book |last1=Szostak |first1=Rick |title=Making Sense of World History |date=22 October 2020 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-20167-3 |page=672 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tDv_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT672 |language=en}} The official state religion of the early Uyghur Khaganate was Manichaeism, which was introduced through the conversion of Bögü Qaghan by the Sogdians after the An Lushan rebellion.{{cite book |last1=Foltz |first1=Richard |title=Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present |date=1 November 2013 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-78074-309-7 |page=256 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sBu9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT256}} The Uyghur Khaganate was tolerant of religious diversity and practiced variety of religions including Buddhism, Christianity, shamanism and Manichaeism.{{cite book |last1=Golden |first1=Peter B. |title=Central Asia in World History |date=14 January 2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-972203-7 |page=47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lRZwAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47 |language=en |ref=none}}

The term "Gagauz" collectively refers to Turkic people in the Balkans who speak the Gagauz language, distinct from Balkan Gagauz Turkish. Two main theories exist regarding their origins. The first suggests that the Gagauz are descendants of the Pechenegs and Kumans, who migrated south into Bulgaria and intermingled with Oghuz Turks, which may explain their Christian faith.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }} However, the Gagauz language shows no signs of Kipchak influence, being classified solely as a Western Oghuz Turkish dialect.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }} The second theory posits a purely Oghuz origin, suggesting that Seljuk Turks from Anatolia migrated to the Byzantine Empire in the 13th century, converted to Christianity, and were settled in Dobruja, now part of Bulgaria and Romania.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }}

File:Moscow KrutitskyTeremok Y49h.jpg) historically served as the seat of Sarai]]

The Cumans were a Turkic nomadic people from Central Asia, part of the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation.{{cite book |last=Bartusis |first=Mark C. |title=The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204–1453 |date=1997 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1620-2 |pages=26–27}} In 1227, they were baptized en masse in Moldavia by Robert, Archbishop of Esztergom, following the orders of Bortz Khan, who pledged allegiance to King Andrew II of Hungary.Szilvia Kovács [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23658650 Bortz, a Cuman Chief in the 13th Century] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229121621/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23658650 |date=2019-12-29 }} Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae

Vol. 58, No. 3, Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Mediaeval History of the Eurasian Steppe: Szeged, Hungary May 11—16, 2004: Part III (2005), pp. 255-266 As a result, many Cumans in the region began to embrace Catholicism.{{cite book|last=Horváth|first=András Pálóczi|title=Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians: Steppe Peoples in Medieval Hungary|date=1989|publisher=Corvina|isbn=978-9-6313-2740-3|page=48}} In 1228, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania was established as a Latin-rite bishopric west of the Siret River, in present-day Romania, and it existed until 1241. This area had been under Cuman control since around 1100. Catholic missions in the region began after King Andrew II granted Burzenland to the Teutonic Knights in 1211. Although Andrew expelled the Knights from the territory in 1225, Dominican friars continued the mission to convert the Cumans. Two years later, Robert baptized Boricius, a prominent Cuman chieftain, further solidifying the Cumans’ conversion to Catholicism.{{cite book |last=Sălăgean |first=Tudor |editor1-last=Pop|editor1-first=Ioan-Aurel |editor2-last=Bolovan |editor2-first=Ioan | title=History of Romania: Compendium |publisher=Romanian Cultural Institute (Center for Transylvanian Studies) |year=2005 |pages=133–207 |chapter=Romanian Society in the Early Middle Ages (9th–14th Centuries AD) |isbn=978-973-7784-12-4}} The term Cumania had come to mean any Catholic subordinated to the Milcovul Diocese, so much so that in some cases, the terms Cuman and Wallach (more precisely, Catholic Wallach, as the Orthodox Christians were considered schismatic, and the Pope did not officially recognise them) were interchangeable.

{{Main|Church of the East}}

File:Piatto con decorazione di castello assediato, arg, samirechye, da bolshoe-anikovskaya, IX-X sec su orig del l'VIII sec.JPG: a Nestorian Christian plate with decoration of a besieged Jericho, by Sogdian artists under Karluk dominion, Semirechye]]

The Church of the East played a major role in the history of Christianity in Asia, between the 9th and 14th centuries, it represented the world's largest Christian denomination in terms of geographical extent, and in the Middle Ages was one of the three major Christian powerhouses of Eurasia alongside Latin Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy. It established dioceses and communities stretching from the Mediterranean Sea and today's Iraq and Iran, to India (the Saint Thomas Syrian Christians of Kerala), the Mongol kingdoms and Turkic tribes in Central Asia, and China during the Tang dynasty (7th–9th centuries). In the 13th and 14th centuries, the church experienced a final period of expansion under the Mongol Empire, where influential Church of the East clergy sat in the Mongol court.Foltz, Richard, Religions of the Silk Road, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010 {{ISBN|978-0-230-62125-1}}{{Cite web |url=http://mcel.pacificu.edu/easpac/2003/may.php3 |title=E-Aspac |access-date=2007-09-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061107101245/http://mcel.pacificu.edu/easpac/2003/may.php3 |archive-date=2006-11-07 |url-status=dead }}

Many Mongol and Turkic tribes, such as the Keraites,"Early in the eleventh century their ruler had been converted to Nestorian Christianity, together with most of his subjects; and the conversion brought the Keraites into touch with the Uighur Turks, amongst whom were many Nestorians", Runciman, p.238 the Naimans, the Merkit, the Ongud,For these four tribes: Roux, p.39-40 and to a large extent the Qara Khitai (who practiced it side-by-side with Buddhism),Grousset, Empire, p. 165 were Nestorian Christian."In 1196, Genghis Khan succeeded in the unification under his authority of all the Mongol tribes, some of which had been converted to Nestorian Christianity" "Les Croisades, origines et conséquences", p.74 The Keraites had converted to the Church of the East (Nestorianism) in the early 11th century and are one of the possible sources of the European Prester John legend.{{cite book|author=Atwood, Christopher P.|title=Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire|year=2004|publisher=Facts On File |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmo0000atwo|url-access=registration|isbn=0816046719}} The Naimans that adopted Nestorianism probably converted around the same time the Keraites adopted the religion in the 11th century.{{Cite book|last=Tang|first=Li|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dW-GtgAACAAJ|title=East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China|date=2011|publisher=Harrassowitz|isbn=978-3-447-06580-1|pages=30–32|language=en}}

The Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh (Black Irtysh) and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia. The Karluks converted to Nestorian Christianity at the end of the 8th century CE, about 15 years after they established themselves in the Jetisu region.{{cite book |last1=Sims |first1=Eleanor |title=Peerless images : Persian painting and its sources |date=2002 |publisher=New Haven : Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-09038-3 |pages=293–294 |url=https://archive.org/details/peerlessimagespe0000sims/page/294/mode/1up}} This was the first time the Church of the East received such major sponsorship by an eastern power.{{cite journal |last1=O'Daly |first1=Briton (Yale University) |title=An Israel of the Seven Rivers |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |date=2021 |page=3 |url=https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp308_Zhetysu_Karluk_Turks_Sogdians.pdf |quote=The conversion of the Karluk Turks by the Church of the East in the eighth century marked an important moment of self-determination for Christians living in early medieval Central Asia: never before had Christianity enjoyed the official backing of such a significant power in the region as the Karluks, who established their kingdom in Zhetysu, the “Land of the Seven Rivers” beneath Lake Balkhash. The Karluks most likely converted to Christianity about fifteen years after they conquered Zhetysu from the Türgesh Khaganate, bridging the identity of the new Karluk state to a religion that had rarely, if ever, been formally associated with the rulers who controlled Central Asia.}} Particularly, the Chigils were Christians of the Nestorian denomination.{{cite web |last1=Sims |first1=Elanor |title=Peerless images: Persian painting and its sources |url=https://archive.org/details/peerlessimagespe0000sims/page/294/mode/1up |website=archive.org |publisher=New Haven |access-date=September 17, 2024}}

File:WangKhan.JPG Khan as "Prester John" in Le Livre des Merveilles, 15th century]]

The practice of milk-drinking during these fasts was first sanctioned by the Nestorian Church in the 11th century in order to accommodate the conversion of some 200,000 Turkic Christians, who lived on meat and milk, to Nestorian Christianity.{{Cite journal|last=Borbone|first=Pier Giorgio |url=https://pisa.academia.edu/PierGiorgioBorbone/Papers/537579/Some_Aspects_of_Turco-Mongol_Christianity_in_the_Light_of_Literary_and_Epigraphic_Syriac_Sources |title=Some Aspects of Turco-Mongol Christianity in the Light of Literary and Epigraphic Syriac Sources |journal=Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies |publisher=Pisa.academia.edu |access-date=2012-09-20}} The first account suggests that Markus Buyruk Khan, formerly known as Sadiq Khan, converted to Nestorian Christianity in 1007 CE, along with about 200,000 of his Turco-Mongolic nomadic tribespeople.{{Cite book|last=Togan, İsenbike.|title=Flexibility and limitation in steppe formations : the Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan|date=1998|publisher=Brill|isbn=90-04-10802-5|location=Leiden|oclc=37806168}} The Keraite were one of the five dominant tribes in the Tatar confederation before Genghis Khan united these tribes into the Mongol Empire. They lived in the Orkhon Steppes, located south of Lake Baikal and north of the Gobi Desert, in what is now known as the Altai-Sayan region. Following their conversion, the Nestorian Metropolitan consulted Patriarch John VI (also known as Prester John) about fasting practices for the new converts.{{Cite book|last=Unnik|first=Willem Cornelis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdJwrUEe3gC&q=nestorian+milk+drinking&pg=PA104|title=Nestorian Questions on the Administration of the Eucharist, by Isho'Yabh IV: A Contribution to the History of the Eucharist in the Eastern Church|date=1970-01-01|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-6032-122-5|language=en}} It was decreed that they should abstain from meat and replace fermented horse milk with fresh milk. This adaptation preserved key aspects of their nomadic diet while integrating Christian practices.{{Cite book|last=Halbertsma|first=Tjalling H. F.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tR2oBgAAQBAJ&q=nestorian+milk+drinking&pg=PA32|title=Early Christian Remains of Inner Mongolia: Discovery, Reconstruction and Appropriation. Second Edition, Revised, Updated and Expanded|date=2015-07-28|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-28886-7|language=en}}

Prominent Nestorian Turkic Christian figures include Yahballaha III, who served as Patriarch of the East from 1281 to 1317.{{cite book |last=Filoni |first=Fernando |authorlink=Fernando Filoni |date=2017 |title=The Church in Iraq |location=Washington D.C. |publisher=The Catholic University of America Press |isbn=9780813229652|page=32}} Rabban Bar Sauma, a Uyghur or Ongud monk, became a diplomat for the Nestorian Church of the East in China.{{cite book|last=Rossabi|first=Morris|author-link=Morris Rossabi|title=From Yuan to Modern China and Mongolia: The Writings of Morris Rossabi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GXejBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA670|year=2014|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-28529-3|page=670}} Additionally, Toghrul was a khan of the Keraites, a notable Turkic group.{{cite book|title=Jingjiao: the Church of the East in China and Central Asia, Monumenta Serica Institute|editor=Malek, Roman |editor2=Hofrichter, Peter|year=2006|isbn=978-3-8050-0534-0|publisher=Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH| chapter=Sorkaktani Beki: A prominent Nestorian woman at the Mongol Court|author=Li, Tang}} Other figures of include Aïbeg and Serkis and Sergius of Samarkand.{{cite book |editor-last=Malek |editor-first=Roman |editor-link=Roman Malek |date=23 August 2021 |title=Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4mBCEAAAQBAJ&dq=Mar+Sergius+Samarkand&pg=PA351 |series=Collectanea Serica |location=Milton Park |publisher=Routledge |pages=350–351 |isbn=978-0-367-34245-6}}

However, the rise of Islam and the subsequent decline of Mongol power led to increasing persecution of the Nestorian Christians.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ex49AAAAIAAJ|title=The Eclipse of Chrostianity in Asia|page=163|last1=Browne |first1=Laurence E. |date=September 1967 }}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FeHAxxEpe-cC|title=Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Modern Iran|page=82|isbn=9780739136096 |last1=Christian Van Gorder |first1=A. |year=2010 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_g58CF8_RLMC|title=The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion|page=210|isbn=9780062098702 |last1=Stark |first1=Rodney |date=25 October 2011 |publisher=Harper Collins }} By the late medieval period, these dynamics contributed to the gradual disappearance of the Church of the East from Central Asia, erasing a once-vibrant Christian presence in the region.{{cite book|last=Khanbaghi|first=Aptin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7iAbUEaXnfEC&pg=PA87|title=The fire, the star and the cross: minority religions in medieval and early modern Iran|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=2006|isbn=9781845110567}} Tamerlane virtually exterminated the Church of the East, which had previously been a major branch of Christianity but afterwards became largely confined to a small area now known as the Assyrian Triangle,{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nestorianism|title=Nestorianism | Definition, History, & Churches | Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|date=2 June 2023 }} currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.{{cite book|author=Carl Skutsch|title=Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXYKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA149|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-19388-1|page=149}}

==== In the Ottoman Empire ====

{{Main|Christianity in the Ottoman Empire}}

File:Karamanli wedding ceremony.jpg wedding ceremony at Malakopi (Cappadocia, now Derinkuyu) ca. 1910]]

Partial or full Turkification of Anatolian Greeks dates back to the early 1100s, as a result of living together with neighboring Turks.{{Cite book |last=Shukurov |first=Rustam |url=https://www.academia.edu/25481924 |title=The Byzantine Turks, 1204-1461 |date=2016 |publisher=Brill Publishers |isbn=978-90-04-30775-9 |editor-last=Andrews |editor-first=Frances |language=en |editor-last2=Herzig |editor-first2=Tamar |editor-last3=Magdalino |editor-first3=Paul |editor-last4=Simon |editor-first4=Larry J. |editor-last5=Smail |editor-first5=Daniel L. |editor-last6=Steenbergen |editor-first6=Jo Van|page=360}} The origin of the Karamanlides is disputed; they are either descendants of Byzantine Greeks who were linguistically Turkified after being pressured through a gradual process of assimilation by the Ottomans, or of Turkic soldiers who settled in the region after the Turkic conquests and converted to Christianity.Vryonis, Speros. Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks, and Ottomans: Reprinted Studies. Undena Publications, 1981, {{ISBN|0-89003-071-5}}, p. 305. "The origins of the Karamanlides have long been disputed, there being two basic theories on the subject. According to one, they are the remnants of the Greek-speaking Byzantine population which, though it remained Orthodox, was linguistically Turkified. The second theory holds that they were originally Turkish soldiers which the Byzantine emperors had settled in Anatolia in large numbers and who retained their language and Christian religion after the Turkish conquests..."{{Cite thesis |last=Baydar |first=Ayça |date=2016 |title=The Turcophone Orthodox Christians from Coexistence to Ethno-religious Homogenisation: A study of the 'Karamanlidhika' Press during the Greek-Turkish War and the Population Exchange |chapter=Chapter One – Introduction |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/43265726 |publisher=University of London |page=21}} Greek scholars incline to the view that the Karamanlides were of Greek descent and adopted Turkish as their vernacular, either by force or as a result of their isolation from the Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians of the coastal regions. Turkish scholars regard them as the descendants of Turks who had migrated to Byzantine territories before the conquest or had served as mercenaries in the Byzantine armies and who had adopted the religion but not the language of their new rulers.{{Cite journal |last=Clogg |first=Richard |date=1968 |title=The Publication and Distribution of Karamanli Texts by the British and Foreign Bible Society Before 1850, I |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/article/abs/publication-and-distribution-of-karamanli-texts-by-the-british-and-foreign-bible-society-before-1850-i/D362CCEF95A440C7E12C00FD2728C908 |journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History |language=en |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=57–81 |doi=10.1017/S0022046900059443 |s2cid=247323232 |issn=1469-7637|url-access=subscription }} Another theory supports that the Karamanlides may have been a mixture of Anatolian Greeks and Christian Turks.{{Cite book|title=Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976|first=Peter|last=Mackridge|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-959905-9|date=2010|page=64|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZcCA4hkwscC&dq=Karamanlides&pg=PA64}} There is not enough evidence to prove how the early Karamanlides identified themselves.{{Cite book |last=Travlos |first=Konstantinos |title=Salvation and Catastrophe: The Greek-Turkish War, 1919–1922 |date=2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4985-8508-8 |pages=322 |language=en}}

During the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Christians were often overlooked, as their population was less than that of Armenians and Greeks, and all Christians were grouped together as a single millet. Throughout the Turkish War of Independence, many Christian Turks were actively loyal to the Turkish National Movement. Many Christian Turks also strongly refused the Greek identity and language, emphasising that they were Turkish and not Greek.Page 58, The last dragoman: the Swedish orientalist Johannes Kolmodin as scholar, Elisabeth ÖzdalgaLuffin, Xavier (2000). "Baba Eftim et l'Église orthodoxe turque: De l'usage politique d'une institution religieuse". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 52 (1–2): 73–95. doi:10.2143/JECS.52.1.565615. There were increasingly high demands for the establishment of an Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate for Turks.Özdalga, Elisabeth (2006-03-07). The Last Dragoman: Swedish Orientalist Johannes Kolmodin as Scholar, Activist, and Diplomat. I. B. Tauris. p. 153. {{ISBN|978-91-86884-14-7}}. Later, Eftim I left the Greek Orthodox Church and established the Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, as an autocephalous patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Turkish Patriarchate staunchly supported the Turkish National Movement, and Eftim I was a close friend of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[http://www.theturkishtimes.com/archive/02/12_15/f_erenol.html Leader of Turkish Nationalist Church Dies] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107064956/http://www.theturkishtimes.com/archive/02/12_15/f_erenol.html|date=January 7, 2009}} On 1 June 1923, followers of Eftim I raided the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and assaulted the pro-Greek Meletius IV, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, causing French military police to intervene. Meletius IV was left badly injured.A. A. Pallis, Σενητεμένοι ‘Éλληνες, (Greeks Abroad) (Athens, 1953), p. 184-186; Times (London), June 2 and 4, 1923, September 25, 1923. Eftim I praised the attack when addressing the public, and called for the resignation of Meletius IV, who he referred to as an "enemy of the Turkish people".Tιmes (London), June 9, 1923. Ileri (Istanbul), June 2 and 9, 1923, quoted in Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Bulletin Periodique de La Presse Turque (Paris), No 29, September 13, 1923, pp. 9. On October 2, 1923, Eftim I and his followers, accompanied by some Turkish policemen, forcefully entered the Holy Synod when it was in session, and ordered the bishops to declare Meletius IV deposed. Out of the eight bishops, six voted in favor of Eftim I while two voted in favor of Meletius IV. After achieving the desired result, Eftim I announced that he would remain at the Ecumenial Patriarchate of Constantinople until seven new members, nominated by him, would be admitted to the Holy Synod, and that a someone who was loyal to Turkey would be elected as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. His demands were met, except for the election of a new patriarch, and Eftim I returned to Ankara as the “official representative” of all Orthodox Christians.Times (London), October 3, and 6, 1923; November 21,1923 Meletius IV signed his abdication on 20 September 1923, although he did not announce it due to his conflict with Eftim I.Times (London), November 21, 1923. Ο.M., November 15, 1923, p. 349 The Greek and Turkish governments both pressured Meletius IV to abdicate, and the Holy Synod received orders from the Turkish government to prepare for a new election, and to understand and accept that the next Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was going to be a Turkish subject elected by Turkish subjects.Times (London), November 12, 1923, and December 7, 1923 On December 6, 1923, Gregorios VII, was elected Ecumenical Patriarch. Eftim I, who was banned from attending the election, opposed Gregorios VII. On the day after the election, Eftim I and his followers raided the Holy Synod and expelled all of its occupants, declaring that in his position as “general procurator”, he would continue the occupation until a new election for a legitimate Patriarch took place. In an open letter to Gregorios VII, he said "you know that you do not have the confidence of the Government. By accepting the office of Patriarch you have harmed the interests of the community. I advise you to resign."Oriente Moderno (Rome), January 15, 1924, p. 30 Two days later, the Turkish police returned the building to the Patriarchate. The Minister of Justice stated in the TBMM that the Patriarchate was solely a religious institution and that the Turkish government approved of the election of Gregorios VII. On December 25, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk thanked Gregorios VII for his loyal expressions towards the Republic of Turkey.{{cite web |title=The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Turkish-Greek Relations, 1923-1940 |url=http://www.turkishweekly.net/article/86/the-greek-orthodox-patriarchate-and-the-turkish-greek-relations-1923-1940.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225055214/http://www.turkishweekly.net/article/86/the-greek-orthodox-patriarchate-and-the-turkish-greek-relations-1923-1940.html |archive-date=2013-12-25 |access-date=2013-12-24}}Oriente Moderno (Rome), January 15, 1924, p. 31 In June 1925, Turkey and Greece officially resolved the conflict over the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and Basil III was elected.League of Nations, Official Journal (July 1925) p. 895.

Many Karamanlides were forced to leave their homes during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Early estimates placed the number of Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians expelled from central and southern Anatolia at around 100,000.Blanchard, Raoul. "The Exchange of Populations Between Greece and Turkey." Geographical Review, 15.3 (1925): 449–56. Stevan K. Pavlowitch says that the Karamanlides were numbered at around 400,000 at the time of the exchange.{{Cite book|last=Pavlowitch|first=Stevan K.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39936266|title=A history of the Balkans, 1804–1945|date=1999|publisher=Addison-Wesley Longman|isbn=0-582-04585-1|location=London|pages=36|oclc=39936266|quote=The Karamanlides were Turkish-speaking Greeks or Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians who lived mainly in Asia Minor. They numbered some 400,000 at the time of the 1923 exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey.}}

File:Kazan Baumana Street StNicholas Cathedral 08-2016.jpg, Tatarstan]]

File:Mitropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov).jpg, was the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna]]

A policy of Christianization of the Muslim Tatars was enacted by the Russian authorities, beginning in 1552, resulting in the emergence of Kryashens (keräşen / keräşennär), also known as "Christianized Tatars".{{cite book|author1=Danier R. Brower|author2=Edward J. Lazzerini|title=Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kJVoeibaNykC|year=2001|publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-21113-1|ref={{sfnref|Brower|2001}}|page=271}} In the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible forcefully Christianized many Volga Tatars, beginning a wave of persecutions and forced conversions under later Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy until the mid-eighteenth century. Kryahsen Tatars live in much of the Volga-Ural area. Today, they tend to be assimilated among the Russians and other Tatar groups.

In the 19th century, numerous Turkic groups within the Russian Empire, such as the Nağaybäk, Chuvash of Chuvashia, and Yakuts of the Sakha Republic, increasingly adopted Russian ways of life. Many of these communities converted en masse to Russian Orthodox Christianity, reflecting the broader cultural and religious influences of the empire during this period. Most Nağaybäks are Christian and were largely converted during the 18th century.

Prominent Christians of Tatar descent include Macarius Bulgakov, who served as the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna from 1879 to 1882. He was a member of numerous learned societies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, and is regarded as one of the foremost church historians of the 19th century Russian Empire.Rowan Williams, "General introduction" in Sergii Nikolaevich Bulgakov, Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology, A&C Black (1999), p. 3 Another notable figure is Sergei Bulgakov, a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher, and economist. Orthodox writer and scholar David Bentley Hart has referred to Bulgakov as "the greatest systematic theologian of the twentieth century",{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU3y_h47ByE |title=David Bentley Hart: 'Orthodoxy in America and America's Orthodoxies' |website=The Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University |date=2 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221005159/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU3y_h47ByE |archive-date=21 December 2022 |url-status=live |quote="At minute marker 32:51."}}{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7f2WIE2i8 |title=The Genius of Sergei Bulgakov - David Bentley Hart |website=Love Unrelenting (YouTube channel) |date=19 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230129193319/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7f2WIE2i8 |archive-date=29 January 2023 |url-status=live}} noting that he came from a lineage of Orthodox priests of Tatar descent spanning six generations.George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, Yale University Press (1943), p. 384Catherine Evtuhov, The Cross & the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy, Cornell University Press (1997), p. 23Judith Deutsch Kornblatt & Richard F. Gustafson, Russian Religious Thought, Univ of Wisconsin Press (1996), p. 135

{{Main|Molokans}}

File:Russian settlers, possibly Molokans, in the Mugan steppe of Azerbaijan. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.jpg in the Mughan steppe of Azerbaijan, {{circa|1910}}]]

The Molokans are a Christian ethnoreligious group and a Russian Spiritual Christian sect that originated from Eastern Orthodoxy in the East Slavic lands.{{cite book |title=Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration, and Settlement on the North American Pacific Rim |first=Susan |last=Wiley Hardwick |year=1993 |isbn=9780226316116 |page=178 |publisher=University of Chicago Press}} Molokans from Tambov, who proselytized in settlements along the Volga River and in the Orenburg, Saratov, and Astrakhan provinces, were primarily of Slavic descent. By the 17th century, Tambov Oblast had been completely settled by Slavic people. The regions where they spread their teachings had significant populations of Muslims and individuals of Tatar or Turkic ancestry.

Between the 1600s and the late 1800s, intermarriage between ethnic Russians and Tatars (with "Tatar" referring broadly to those of Turkic background) was common. For a Tatar, marrying a Russian could enhance social status. Muslim Tatars who converted to Christianity gained exemptions from taxes and other privileges.{{Cite book|last1=Holloman|first1=Regina E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x3gAB7A6-bgC&q=russian+tatar+marriage&pg=PA167|title=Perspectives on Ethnicity|last2=Arutiunov|first2=Serghei A.|date=2011-06-15|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-080770-7|language=en}} It is well known that a segment of ethnic Russians has mixed ancestry that includes Middle Eastern or Mongolic Turkic influences alongside Slavic roots. The idea that Molokans have a blend of Slavic and Turkic genetics is also supported by various accounts.{{Cite book|last=Kefeli|first=Agnès Nilüfer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pmcfBQAAQBAJ&q=molokan+tatar&pg=PT234|title=Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia: Conversion, Apostasy, and Literacy|date=2014-12-18|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-5476-9|language=en}}

Molokans complicated the Eastern Orthodox Church's efforts to convert Tatar or Turkic Muslims, as they taught that religious iconography was a sin. Known for their iconoclastic beliefs —deemed heretical by the Orthodox Church— Molokans attracted some Muslims, who found resonance in their preservation of certain Islamic traditions. Additionally, some Muslim converts in Russia were known to adopt Christianity for the benefits it conferred. As Molokans generally practiced endogamy and married within their faith, they would accept converts regardless of their ethnic background.

File:Christians outside the church at Kashgar.jpg outside the church at Kashgar in the early 1930s]]

There had been Christian conversions among Uighur Muslims in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but these were suppressed by the First East Turkestan Republic government agents.{{cite book|author1=Stephen Uhalley|author2=Xiaoxin Wu|title=China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPnqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA274|date=4 March 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-47501-9|pages=274–}}{{cite book|author=Ildikó Bellér-Hann|title=Community Matters in Xinjiang, 1880-1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cF4lMj8skvoC&pg=PA59|year=2008|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-16675-2|pages=59–}}{{cite book|author=Edward Laird Mills|title=Christian Advocate -: Pacific Edition ..|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vgtAQAAIAAJ&q=swedish+missionaries+1933+persecution|year=1938|page=986}} In 1904, George W. Hunter with the China Inland Mission opened the first mission station for CIM in Xinjiang.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uVBBAQAAMAAJ|title=China and the Gospel: An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission|publisher=The Mission|year=1911|page=15|author=China Inland Mission}} But already in 1892, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden started missions in the area around Kashgar, and later built mission stations, churches, hospitals and schools in Yarkant and Yengisar.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AWMtBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT290|title=Xinjiang and the Expansion of Chinese Communist Power: Kashgar in the Early Twentieth Century|last=Dillon|first=Michael|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2014|isbn=978-1-317-64720-1|location=Abingdon|pages=290}} Because of persecution, the churches were destroyed and the believers were scattered.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA179|title=Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-231-13924-3|page=179|author=James A. Millward}} From 1894 to 1938, many Uighur Muslims converted to Christianity. They were killed, tortured and jailed.Missionary Review of the World; 1878-1939. Princeton Press. 1939. p. 130. vol.62.{{Cite book|last=Claydon|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gV32uPMChgAC&pg=PA385|title=A New Vision, a New Heart, a Renewed Call|date=2005|publisher=William Carey Library|isbn=978-0-87808-363-3|page=385}}{{Cite book|last1=Uhalley|first1=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPnqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA274|title=China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future|last2=Wu|first2=Xiaoxin|date=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-47501-9|page=274}} Christian missionaries were expelled.{{Cite book|last=Forbes|first=Andrew D. W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949|date=1986|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-25514-1| pages=84, 87}} According to the national census, 0.5% or 1,142 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan were Christians in 2009.{{Cite web |script-title= kk:Қазақстан Республикасындағы ұлттық құрам, діни наным және тілдерді меңгеру |title= Nationality, religious beliefs and language skills in the Republic of Kazakhstan (Census 2009) |page= 329 |url= https://stat.gov.kz/census/national/2009/general |website= Republic of Kazakhstan Bureau of National Statistics |access-date= 10 March 2021 |location= Astana |date= 2011 |archive-date= 20 June 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210620060742/https://stat.gov.kz/census/national/2009/general |url-status= dead }}

According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey from the University of Melbourne, since the 1960s there has been a substantial increase in the number of conversions from Islam to Christianity, mostly to the Evangelical and Pentecostal forms.{{cite book|title=A Short History of Christianity| first=Geoffrey |last=Blainey|year= 2011| isbn= 9781742534169 |publisher=Penguin Random House Australia|quote=Since the 1960s, there has been a substantial increase in the number of Muslims who have converted to Christianity}} Turkic Christians of Muslim background communities can be found in Azerbaijan,{{cite book|title=Oil and Geopolitics in the Caspian Sea Region| first=Bülent |last= Aras|year= 1999| isbn= 9780275963958| page =166|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|quote=According to Iranian sources in Baku, Western "religious front associations" have converted some 5,000 Azerbaijanis to various Christian evangelical denominations since 1991 }}{{cite book|title=Rivista di studi politici internazionali| first=F. le |last= Monnier|year= 2009| isbn= 9780275963958| page =69|publisher=Facoltà di scienze politiche "Cesare Alfieri|quote= the 1990s these front organizations succeeded in converting some 5,000 Azeris to various Christian evangelical }} Bulgaria,{{Cite web |title=From the 2021 Census: How many are the Bulgarians, Turks and Roma in the Country - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency |url=https://www.novinite.com/articles/217699/From+the+2021+Census%3A+How+many+are+the+Bulgarians%2C+Turks+and+Roma+in+the+Country |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=www.novinite.com}}{{Cite web |title=71.5% are the Christians in Bulgaria - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency |url=https://www.novinite.com/articles/217761/71.5+are+the+Christians+in+Bulgaria |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=www.novinite.com}} Germany,{{cite journal |author=Esra Özyürek|title=Convert Alert: German Muslims and Turkish Christians as Threats to Security in the New Europe|journal=Cambridge University Press|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27563732|access-date=2016-08-22|date=2016-08-06|volume=51|issue=1|pages=91–116|jstor=27563732|author-link=JSTOR}}Özyürek, Esra. 2005. "The Politics of Cultural Unification, Secularism, and the Place of Islam in the New Europe." American Ethnologist 32 (4): 509–12. Kazakhstan,{{cite book|title=Religious Identity and Social Change: Explaining Christian conversion in a Muslim world| first=David |last=Radford|year= 2015| isbn= 9781317691716 |publisher=Routledge|quote=Today it is possible to speak of thousand of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs converted to Protestantism. This new phenomenon has clashed with the common belief that all native people must be Muslim }} Kyrgyzstan,{{cite book|title=Politics, Identity and Education in Central Asia: Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan| first=Pınar |last= Akçalı |year= 2013| isbn= 9781135627676|publisher=Routledge}}{{cite web|url=https://www.silkroadstudies.org/resources/Religion_and_the_Secular_State_in_Kyrgyzstan_-_Johan_Engvall_-_10.06.20_-_FINAL_wCover.pdf|title=Religion and the Secular State in Kyrgyzstan|date=20 June 2020|publisher=The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies|quote=P.25: By the early 2000s, some scholars estimated the total number of Kyrgyz converts to Christianity to about 25,000}} Russia,{{cite book|title= Russia's Islam and Orthodoxy beyond the Institutions: Languages of Conversion, Competition and Convergence|first= Michael |last= Kemper|year= 2019| isbn= 9781351022408|publisher=Routledge}} Turkey,{{cite web|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/2006/12/4/fearing-a-new-holy-empire|title=Fearing a new holy empire: Just when Turks are worried about Christians, here comes the Pope|date=4 December 2006|publisher=Maclean's|quote=More tangibly, figures published in January 2004 in Turkey's mainstream Milliyet newspaper claimed that 35,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them in Istanbul, had converted to Christianity in 2003. While impossible to confirm (the Turkish government does not release these figures), the rate of conversion, according to Christian leaders in Turkey, is on the rise.|access-date=19 July 2021|archive-date=19 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719121102/https://archive.macleans.ca/article/2006/12/4/fearing-a-new-holy-empire|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|title=A Quest for Equality: Minorities in Turkey| first=MRG international|last= report|year= 2007| isbn=9781904584636| page =13|publisher=Minority Rights Group International|quote= The estimated number of Protestants in Turkey is 4,000–6,000, most of whom live in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Protestantism has been a part of Turkey's history for 200 years, first spreading among the non-Muslim minorities. Conversion from Islam to Protestantism was very rare until the 1960s, but Muslim converts currently constitute the majority of Protestants..}}{{cite book|title=Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks: Updated Edition| first=Jenny |last= White|year= 2014| isbn=9781400851256| page =82|publisher=Princeton University Press|quote= a number that vastly exceeds the size of present-day Turkish-speaking Protestant churches, of whose 3,000 members are converts from Islam}}{{cite web|url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/after-the-missionary-massacre-christian-converts-live-in-fear-in-intolerant-turkey-a-478955.html|title=Christian Converts Live In Fear in Intolerant Turkey|date=23 April 2007|publisher=Der Spiegel|quote=The liberal newspaper Radikal estimates that there are about 10,000 converts in Turkey, expressing surprise that they could be seen as a "threat" in a country of 73 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim.}} and Uzbekistan.{{cite book|title=Muslim-Christian Relations in Central Asia| first=Christian |last= Mvan Gorder|year= 2018| isbn=9781135971694| page =17|publisher=Routledge}}

The main Turkic Christian peoples include the Chuvash of Chuvashia, the Gagauz of Moldova, and the Yakuts of the Sakha Republic. The vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians.{{Cite book|last=Cole|first=Jeffrey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wlth0GRi0N0C&q=chuvash+ethnic+group&pg=PA73|title=Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia|date=2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-302-6|page=74|language=en}}

{{Main|Chuvash people}}

File:Введенский Собор в Чебоксарах (1).jpg

The Chuvash people are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Ogurs, native to an area stretching from the Idel-Ural (Volga-Ural) region to Siberia.{{Cite encyclopedia |url= http://www.lexico.com/definition/Chuvash |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200612095257/https://www.lexico.com/definition/chuvash |url-status= dead |archive-date= June 12, 2020 |title= Chuvash |dictionary= Lexico UK English Dictionary |publisher= Oxford University Press}} Most of them live in Chuvashia and the surrounding areas, although Chuvash communities may be found throughout the Russian Federation. They speak Chuvash, a Turkic language that diverged from other languages in the family more than a millennium ago. Among the Chuvash believers, the majority are Eastern Orthodox Christians although a minority follow Sunni Islam or Vattisen Yaly. The traditional religion of the Chuvash of Russia, while containing many ancient Turkic concepts, also shares some elements with Zoroastrianism, Khazar Judaism, and Islam. Most Chuvash converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the latter half of the 19th century, leading to the alignment of their festivals and rites with Orthodox Christian observances and the replacement of traditional practices with Christian ones. Despite this, a minority of Chuvash continue to practice their ancestral faith.Guide to Russia:[http://russiatoday.strana.ru/en/profile/people/nat/1482.html Chuvash] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050501105730/http://russiatoday.strana.ru/en/profile/people/nat/1482.html |date=1 May 2005 }}

{{Main|Gagauz people}}

File:Comrat.jpg serves as a central church for the Gagauz community]]

The Gagauzare a Turkic ethnic group{{cite book |last=Menz |first=Astrid |editor-first=Doğan |editor-last=Kuban |title=The Turkic speaking peoples |publisher=Prestel |year=2006 |chapter=The Gagauz |isbn=978-3-7913-3515-5}} native to southern Moldova (Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak).{{cite web|url=http://www.medgenetics.ru/UserFile/File/Varzar.pdf|title=Searching for the Origin of Gagauzes: Inferences from Y-Chromosome Analysis|date=2009|website=Medgenetics.ru|access-date=10 January 2018}} Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }} The term Gagauz is also often used as a collective naming of Turkic people living in the Balkans, speaking the Gagauz language, a language separated from Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The Turkic thesis is divided into two main subgroups. The first posits that the Gagauz are descendants of the Pechenegs and Kumans, who migrated south from the north into Bulgaria, where they mingled with the Oghuz Turks. This theory could explain their Christian faith; however, it is important to note that there are no signs of a Kipchak origin in the Gagauz language, which is exclusively Western Oghuz and classified as a Turkish dialect.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }} The second subgroup suggests a purely Oghuz origin. It argues that a group of Seljuk Turks from Anatolia migrated to the Byzantine Empire in the 13th century, adopted Christianity, and were settled by the Byzantine Emperor in Dobruja, an area that is now part of Bulgaria and Romania.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307044349id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956506925-123.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-03-07|chapter=The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness|publisher=Georgia State University|doi=10.5771/9783956506925-123 |quote=What makes the Gagauz different from the other Turkish groups in the Balkan countries is the fact that they are Orthodox Christians. |title=Cultural Changes in the Turkic World |date=2007 |last1=Menz |first1=Astrid |pages=123–130 |isbn=978-3-95650-692-5 }}

Most of Orthodox Gagauzs belong to the Moldovan Orthodox Church (formally known as Metropolis of Chișinău and All Moldova), which is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church. There have been a number of attempts from the 1930s into the 21st century to tie the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate with the ethnically Turkic, Greek Orthodox Gagauz minority in Bessarabia.[http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20040123b.html The Political Role of the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (so-called)] by Dr. Racho Donef

{{Main|Kryashens}}

File:Kazan Tikhvinskaya Church 08-2016.jpg, is a key church for the Kryashen community]]

Kryashens are a sub-group of the Volga Tatars, with the vast majority being Orthodox Christians.{{Cite book|last=Akiner|first=Shirin|title=Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union: with an appendix on the non-Muslim Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union: an historical and statistical handbook|publisher=KPI|year=1986|isbn=0-7103-0188-X|edition=2nd|location=London|pages=431–432}}< A policy of Christianization of the Muslim Tatars was enacted by the Russian authorities, beginning in 1552, resulting in the emergence of Kryashens (keräşen / keräşennär), also known as "Christianized Tatars".{{cite book|author1=Danier R. Brower|author2=Edward J. Lazzerini|title=Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kJVoeibaNykC|year=2001|publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-21113-1|ref={{sfnref|Brower|2001}}|page=271}} In the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible forcefully Christianized many Volga Tatars, beginning a wave of persecutions and forced conversions under later Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy until the mid-eighteenth century.{{Cite book|last=Yemelianova|first=Galina M.|title=Russia and Islam: A Historical Survey|url=https://archive.org/details/russiaislamhisto00yeme|url-access=limited|publisher=Palgrave|year=2002|isbn=0-333-68354-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/russiaislamhisto00yeme/page/n60 36]–41}} Kryahsen Tatars live in much of the Volga-Ural area. Today, they tend to be assimilated among the Russians and other Tatar groups.{{Cite book |last=Bennigsen |first=Alexandre |title=Muslims of the Soviet empire : a guide |publisher=Indiana University Press |others=Wimbush, S. Enders. |year=1986 |isbn=0-253-33958-8 |location=Bloomington |pages=234}}

During Soviet times, an alternative version for the ethnogenesis of Kryashens emerged, which suggested that their ancestors adopted Christianity voluntarily during times of Volga Bulgaria. Historian Maxim Glukhov connected their roots to Keraites.Татары / Отв. ред. Р. К. Уразманова, С. В. Чешко. — М.: Наука, 2001. — 583 с. — (Народы и культуры).Глухов М. С. Tatarica. Энциклопедия. — Казань: Ватан, 1997. С.328.

The Kryashens had little religious and educational infrastructure in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, during the 18th century they were given many privileges and facilities were built or accommodated for the Kryashens. The first Tatar school for converts was established in 1863 while the first seminary was founded in 1872.

The Nağaybäk, an indigenous Turkic people in Russia, are predominantly Christian, having been largely converted to Christianity during the 18th century.{{Cite book |last=Akiner |first=Shirin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd-3AAAAQBAJ |title=Islamic Peoples Of The Soviet Union |date=1986 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-14274-1 |page=100 |language=en}} During the 19th century, many Khakas accepted the Russian ways of life, and most were converted en masse to Russian Orthodox Christianity.

{{Main|Christianity in Azerbaijan|Azerbaijani Christians}}

File:Portrait of Alexander Kasimovich Kazembek, taken at Saint Petersburg in the 1860s.jpg was a prominent Azerbaijani ChristianRobert P. Geraci. Window on the East: National and Imperial Identities in Late Tsarist Russia. (Cornell University Press, 2001), 310 (note 3) {{ISBN|0-8014-3422-X}}, 9780801434228]]

Some Azerbaijanis of the Republic of Azerbaijan are believed to be descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania, an ancient country located in the eastern Caucasus region, and various Iranian peoples which settled the region.{{Cite journal|last=Sourdel|first=D.|date=1959|title=V. MINORSKY, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th–11th centuries, 1 vol. in-8°, 187 p. et 32 p. (texte arabe), Cambridge (Heffer and Sons), 1958|journal=Arabica|volume=6|issue=3|pages=326–327|doi=10.1163/157005859x00208|issn=0570-5398}} They claim there is evidence that, due to repeated invasions and migrations, the aboriginal Caucasian population may have gradually been culturally and linguistically assimilated, first by Iranian peoples, such as the Persians,{{Cite book|title=Istorii︠a︡ Vostoka : v shesti tomakh|date=1995–2008|publisher=Izdatelʹskai︠a︡ firma "Vostochnai︠a︡ lit-ra" RAN|editor=Rybakov, R. B.|others=Kapit︠s︡a, Mikhail Stepanovich., Рыбаков, Р. Б., Капица, Михаил Степанович., Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Rossiĭskai︠a︡ akademii︠a︡ nauk), Институт востоковедения (Rossiĭskai︠a︡ akademii︠a︡ nauk)|isbn=5-02-018102-1|location=Moskva|oclc=38520460}} and later by the Oghuz Turks.

Considerable information has been learned about the Caucasian Albanians, including their language, history, early conversion to Christianity, and relations with the Armenians and Georgians, under whose strong religious and cultural influence the Caucasian Albanians came in the coming centuries.{{Cite journal|last=Weitenberg|first=J.J.S.|date=1984|title=Thomas J. SAMUELIAN (ed.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity. Proceedings of the first Dr. H. Markarian Conference on Armenian culture (University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 4), Scholars Press, Chico, CA 1982, xii and 233 pp., paper $ 15,75 (members $ 10,50), cloth $ 23,50 (members $ 15,75)|journal=Journal for the Study of Judaism|volume=15|issue=1–2|pages=198–199|doi=10.1163/157006384x00411|issn=0047-2212}}{{Cite journal|last1=Suny|first1=Ronald G.|last2=Stork|first2=Joe|date=July 1988|title=Ronald G. Suny: What Happened in Soviet Armenia?|journal=Middle East Report|issue=153|pages=37–40|doi=10.2307/3012134|issn=0899-2851|jstor=3012134}} Christian Azerbaijanis number around 5,000 people in the Republic of Azerbaijan and consist mostly of recent converts.{{cite web|url=http://news.day.az/society/85160.html|title=5,000 Azerbaijanis adopted Christianity|publisher=Day.az|date=7 July 2007|language=ru|access-date=30 January 2012|archive-date=12 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200112173129/https://news.day.az/society/85160.html|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://azeri.irib.ir/tehliller/item/148029-xristian-missioner-t%C9%99riq%C9%99tl%C9%99r-ar-da-aktivl%C9%99sir?tmpl=component&print=1|title=Christian Missionaries Becoming Active in Azerbaijan|publisher=Tehran Radio|date=19 June 2011|language=az|access-date=12 August 2012|archive-date=25 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141025134350/http://azeri.irib.ir/tehliller/item/148029-xristian-missioner-t%C9%99riq%C9%99tl%C9%99r-ar-da-aktivl%C9%99sir?tmpl=component&print=1|url-status=live}} In recent years, some Azerbaijanis in Iran have begun converting to Christianity,{{cite web|url=http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue20646.html|title=Three Iranian-Azeri Christians Arrested; Their Fate Unknown|website=www.christiantelegraph.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806034606/http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue20646.html|archive-date=2016-08-06}} which is strictly prohibited and can result in imprisonment.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/09/iran-christianity-conversion|title=The cost of religious conversion in Iran – Theresa Malinowska|first=Theresa|last=Malinowska|date=9 May 2009|website=The Guardian|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220142203/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/09/iran-christianity-conversion|archive-date=20 December 2016}}

According to 2009 national census 39,172 ethnic Kazakhs are Christians (0.38% of all Kazakhstani Kazakhs).{{cite web|url=http://www.stat.kz/news/Pages/n2_12_11_10.aspx |script-title=ru:Итоги национальной переписи населения 2009 года (Summary of the 2009 national census) |language=ru |publisher=Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan |access-date=21 May 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130612063733/http://www.stat.kz/news/Pages/n2_12_11_10.aspx |archive-date=12 June 2013 }} A 2015 study estimates some 19,000 Christians from a Muslim background residing in Kyrgyzstan, though not all are necessarily citizens of Kyrgyzstan.{{cite journal|last1=Johnstone|first1=Patrick|last2=Miller|first2=Duane Alexander|title=Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census|journal=IJRR|date=2015|volume=11|issue=10|pages=1–19|url=https://www.academia.edu/16338087|accessdate=30 October 2015}} While other scholars estimated the total number of Muslim Kyrgyz converts to Christianity between 25,000[https://www.silkroadstudies.org/resources/Religion_and_the_Secular_State_in_Kyrgyzstan_-_Johan_Engvall_-_10.06.20_-_FINAL_wCover.pdf Religion and the Secular State in Kyrgyzstan] to 50,000, although the government disputes that figure.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8446662.stm Kyrgyzstan keeps a tight grip on religion] Exact numbers of Muslim Kyrgyz converts to Christianity vary but an estimate of around 20,000 is generally accepted among scholars. A 2015 study estimates some 10,000 Muslim Uzbek converted to Christianity, most of them belonging to some sort of evangelical or charismatic Protestant community.{{cite journal|last1=Johnstone|first1=Patrick|last2=Miller|first2=Duane Alexander|title=Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census|journal=IJRR|date=2015|volume=11|issue=10|pages=1–19|url=https://www.academia.edu/16338087|access-date=30 October 2015|archive-date=13 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210313222442/https://www.academia.edu/16338087/Believers_in_Christ_from_a_Muslim_Background_A_Global_Census|url-status=live}} According to 2009 national census 1,794 Uzbeks in Kazakhstan are Christians.[http://www.stat.kz/p_perepis/Documents/010411_%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%20%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B2%20%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81.doc Итоги национальной переписи населения 2009 года. Национальный состав, вероисповедание и владения языками в Республике Казахстан]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} In Russia there are some long-term Uzbek workers who have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy through missionaries.

A minority of the Iraqi Turkmen are Roman Catholics,{{cite news |last=al-Lami |first=Mina |date=July 21, 2014 |title=Iraq: The minorities of Nineveh |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28351073 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200514010333/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28351073 |archive-date=May 14, 2020 |publisher=BBC}}{{cite news |last=Shams |first=Alex |title=Iraq's Turkmen mobilise for a post-ISIL future |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/2/13/iraqs-turkmen-mobilise-for-a-post-isil-future |website=Al Jazeera}}{{Cite web |author1=Fildişi Ajans |author2=Danışmanlık ve Yazılım |title=ORSAM-Center for Middle Eastern Studies |url=https://www.orsam.org.tr/en/the-popes-visit-to-iraq-and-turkmens/ |access-date=2023-09-19 |website=ORSAM-Center for Middle Eastern Studies |language=en}} and their number was estimated at about 30,000 in 2015.{{cite book |last=Hann |first=Geoff |title=Iraq: The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan |publisher=Bradt Travel Guides |year=2015 |isbn=9781841624884 |quote=There are estimated to be some three million Turkmen in Iraq, but despite ... There are also about 30,000 Christian 'Catholic'Turks and some Jews living in Iraq...}}Iraq: The Ancient Sites & Iraqi Kurdistan, Geoff Hann, Karen Dabrowska, Tina Townsend-Greaves, 2015, pp. 200 In 2017, they comprised around 1% of the Iraqi Turkmen.{{Cite web |title=Iraq's Turkmen mobilise for a post-ISIL future |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/2/13/iraqs-turkmen-mobilise-for-a-post-isil-future |access-date=2025-03-02 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}} Iraqi Turkmen Catholics were distinct from Citadel Christians. Iraqi Turkmen Catholics were Latin Catholic and lived all through Turkmeneli, including Kirkuk. The Citadel Christians were Chaldean Catholic and lived solely in Kirkuk. Furthermore, Citadel Christians were ethnically Assyrian whereas the Iraqi Turkmen Catholics were ethnically Turkic. Citadel Christians, numbering "a few thousand" in 2017, were significantly fewer than Iraqi Turkmen Catholics.{{Cite web |title=مسيحيو قلعة كركوك الأثرية قلقون على مستقبلها |url=https://almadapaper.net//view.php?cat=170391 |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=almadapaper.net}} In 2021, the Turkmen Bible Partnership translated the New Testament into the Iraqi Turkmen dialect and printed and distributed 2,000 copies.{{Cite web |title=Home {{!}} Turkmen Bible Partnership |url=https://www.turkmenbiblepartnership.org/ |access-date=2023-09-19 |website=Turkmen Bible Partne |language=en}}

{{Main|Christianity in Turkey|Protestantism in Turkey}}

File:TR Izmir asv2020-02 img24 StJohn the Evangelist Church.jpg, is a key church for the ethnic Christian Turkish community]]

There is an ethnic Turkish Protestant Christian community in Turkey numbering around ~10,000,{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdLDzrPE5gc&t=719s | title=Carlos Madrigal Türkiye'deki Protestanların Sorunu - YouTube | website=YouTube }} mostly adherents, and most of them coming from a Muslim Turkish background.[http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-03/turkish-protestants-still-face-long-path-religious-freedom Turkish Protestants still face "long path" to religious freedom (2011)][http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=christians-in-east-remain-worried-despite-church-opening-2011-07-20 Christians in eastern Turkey worried despite church opening (2011)][https://books.google.com/books?id=6gajAgAAQBAJ&dq=turkish+protestant+muslim&pg=PA93 Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks][http://churchinchains.ie/node/743 TURKEY: Protestant church closed down] In 2003, the Milliyet newspaper claimed that 35,000 Turkish Muslims had converted to Christianity.{{cite web|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/2006/12/4/fearing-a-new-holy-empire|title=Fearing a new holy empire: Just when Turks are worried about Christians, here comes the Pope|date=4 December 2006|publisher=Maclean's|quote=More tangibly, figures published in January 2004 in Turkey’s mainstream Milliyet newspaper claimed that 35,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them in Istanbul, had converted to Christianity in 2003. While impossible to confirm (the Turkish government does not release these figures), the rate of conversion, according to Christian leaders in Turkey, is on the rise.}} A 2015 study estimates about 4,500 Christians are from a previous Muslim background in the country.{{cite journal|last1=Johnstone|first1=Patrick|last2=Miller|first2=Duane Alexander|title=Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census|journal=IJRR|date=2015|volume=11|issue=10|pages=1–19|url=https://www.academia.edu/16338087|access-date=30 October 2015}} While other sources estimated the number of the Turkish who converted to Christianity (most of them secret worshippers) between 4,000–6,000, or more than those numbers.{{cite book|title=A Quest for Equality: Minorities in Turkey| first=MRG international|last= report|year= 2007| isbn=9781904584636| page =13|publisher=Minority Rights Group International|quote= The estimated number of Protestants in Turkey is 4,000-6,000, most of whom live in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Protestantism has been a part of Turkey’s history for 200 years, first spreading among the non-Muslim minorities. Conversion from Islam to Protestantism was very rare until the 1960s, but Muslim converts currently constitute the majority of Protestants..}} Though, there are several significant and major Protestant churches and worship sites in Turkey protected legally, most of them are located in the 4 large cities of Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Bursa.

Prominent ethnic Turkish Christians include Paul Mulla, Antuan Ilgit and Julio Murat, these Turkish prelates of the Catholic Church; Nazlı Tolga, a journalist;{{Cite web|title=Brezilya'ya yerleşen Nazlı Tolga, Çin'e taşınıyor|url=https://www.sabah.com.tr/magazin/2015/06/06/brezilyaya-yerlesen-nazli-tolga-cine-tasiniyor|access-date=23 June 2020|website=Sabah|language=tr|date=6 June 2015}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.bilalozcan.com/spiker-nazli-tolga-din-mi-degistirdi-03-eylul-2013-sali-5738|title=Spi̇ker Nazli Tolga Di̇n Mi̇ Deği̇şti̇rdi̇?|website=Bilalözcan|date=3 September 2013}} Leyla Gencer, an operatic soprano;[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1950447/Leyla-Gencer.html Obituary], Telegraph.co.uk; accessed 29 May 2015. Ziya Meral, a scientist and economist; Rabia Kazan, an author and activist;{{cite news |last1=Sollenberger |first1=Roger |last2=O'Neill |first2=Kathleen |last3=Jamieson |first3=Amber |title=She Shunned Islam And Was Embraced By Trump World. Now, She's Turned Against Them. |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rogersollenberger/she-shunned-islam-and-was-embraced-by-trump-world-now-shes |access-date=18 January 2021 |work=BuzzFeed News |date=5 February 2020}} Tunch Ilkin, a football player;{{cite news|first=Maryann|last=Gogniat Eidemiller|title=Ilkin to share story of faith|date=April 6, 2004|website=TribLive.com|url=https://archive.triblive.com/news/ilkin-to-share-story-of-faith/|access-date=September 7, 2021}} along with Hakan Taştan and Turan Topal.{{Cite web|title=TURKEY: More trials for Turan and Hakan – Church In Chains – Ireland :: An Irish voice for suffering, persecuted Christians Worldwide|url=https://www.churchinchains.ie/news-by-country/europe/turkey/turkey-more-trials-for-turan-and-hakan/|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-05-19}}

The Karamanlides ({{langx|el|Καραμανλήδες|Karamanlídes}}; {{langx|tr|Karamanlılar}}), also known as Karamanli Greeks{{Cite book |editor-last=Ilıcak |editor-first=H. Şükrü |editor-last2=Varjabedian |editor-first2=Jonathan |title=My Dear Son Garabed, I Read Your Letter, I Cried, I Laughed: Kojaian Family Letters from Efkere/Kayseri to America (1912–1919) |date=2021 |publisher=Gomidas Institute |isbn=978-1909382657 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mTpzzgEACAAJ |location=London |language=en, tr |quote-page=23 |quote=Turkophone Greeks are called Karamanli Greeks or Karamanlides, and their language and literature is called Karamanli Turkish or Karamanlidika, but the scholarly literature has no equivalent terms for Turkophone Armenians.}}{{Cite book |last=Erol |first=Merih |title=Greek Orthodox Music in Ottoman Istanbul: Nation and Community in the Era of Reform |date=2015 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-01842-7 |page=6 |language=en |quote=In the bilingual and bi-musical song anthologies published by the Karamanli Greeks of Anatolia, Turkish melodies were transcribed in the reformed Byzantine notation, and Turkish texts were printed in Greek script.}}{{Cite book |last=Yildirim |first=Onur |title=Diplomacy and Displacement: Reconsidering the Turco-Greek Exchange of Populations, 1922–1934 |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-60010-4 |page=62 |language=en |quote=Here the term "Christians" should be read as referring specifically to the remaining Armenian groups and perhaps Karamanli Greeks in the interior of Anatolia, who had not yet been displaced.}} or simply Karamanlis, are a traditionally Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to the region of Karaman in Anatolia.

Some scholars traditionally regard Karamanlides as Turkish-speaking Greeks,{{cite book |author=Nagel Publishers |title=Turkey |publisher=Nagel |year=1968 |page=615 |oclc=3060049 |quote=The Karaman region was for a long time inhabited by Turkish-speaking Orthodox Greeks who wrote Turkish in the Greek script. These Greeks are called Karamanians.}}{{cite journal |last=Daly |first=Michael |year=1988 |title=The Turkish legacy: an exhibition of books and manuscripts to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk |journal=Bodleian Library |page=40 |isbn=978-1-85124-016-6 |quote=… a large number of works were printed in Turkish using the Greek and Armenian alphabets. These were intended for those ethnic Greeks and Armenians who, while retaining their religious allegiance to their respective churches, had lost all knowledge of their own languages and had been assimilated linguistically by their Muslim Turkish neighbours. Turcophone Greeks were known as Karamanlides, after the province of Karaman where many of them lived, although there were also large communities in Istanbul and in the Black Sea region, and printed or manuscript works in Turkish using the Greek alphabet are known as Karamanlidika.}} though their exact ethnic origin is disputed; they could either be descendants of Byzantine Greeks who were linguistically Turkified, or of Christian Turkic soldiers who settled in the region after the Turkic conquests, or even both. The Karamanlides were forced to leave Anatolia during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Today, a majority of the population live in Greece and have fully integrated into Greek society.File:Sille Agia Eleni Inscription.jpg, near Konya]]The Urums ({{IPAc-en|ʊəˈr|uː|m}}, {{IPAc-en|ʊ|ˈ|r|uː|m}}; {{langx|el|Ουρούμ}}, Urúm; Turkish and Crimean Tatar: Urum, {{IPA|tr|uˈɾum|IPA}}) are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.{{Cite book |last=Skopeteas |first=Stavros |title=The Caucasian Urums and the Urum Language |publisher=Bielefeld University |year=2013}}

{{Main|Caucasus Greeks}}

File:Caucasus Greek Orthodox cleric and community leaders.jpg

The Caucasus Greeks or more commonly {{lang|el|Καυκάσιοι Έλληνες}}, also known as the Greeks of Transcaucasia and Russian Asia Minor, are the ethnic Greeks of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in what is now southwestern Russia, Georgia, and northeastern Turkey. These specifically include the Pontic Greeks, though they today span a much wider region including the Russian north Caucasus, and the former Russian Caucasus provinces of the Batum Oblast' and the Kars Oblast' (the so-called Russian Asia Minor), now in north-eastern Turkey and Adjara in Georgia. A large number of Caucasus Greeks who settled in Georgia became referred to as Urum (from the Turkish for '[Byzantine] Romans') and spoke a Turkish dialect with a large admixture of Pontic Greek, Georgian, and Armenian vocabulary.Eloyeva, 1994 According to local Greek legend, after the suppression of their revolt against Ottoman rule, these Turkish-speaking but Christian Orthodox Caucasus Greeks had been given the choice by Sultan Selim I either to accept Islam but continue to use their Greek mother tongue, or to use the Turkish language but retain their Christian Orthodox faith.Topalidis, p. 98. Selim I had been based in the Trebizond region before he became Sultan in 1512, since he was himself of partly Pontic Greek origin on the side of his mother Gülbahar Hatun.Koromela, p. 43.Bryer, The Empire of Trebizond and the Pontus, (Variorum, 1980), XI., p. 41.

Nevertheless, most Caucasus Greeks had never had to face this predicament of having to choose between their Christian Orthodox faith and their Pontic Greek language and so were able to retain both, although when in Russian territory they eventually came to adopt Russian as their second language for public and educational purposes.Acherson, ch. 10. Caucasus Greeks also often maintained some command of Turkish as more or less a third language, thanks to their own roots in north-eastern Anatolia, where they had after all lived (usually very uneasily and in a state of intermittent warfare) alongside Turkish-speaking Muslims since the Seljuk-backed Turkish migrations into 'the lands of Rum' or Anatolia during the 11th and 12th centuries.Mikhailidis, Christos & Athanasiadis, Andreas, p. 17. Pontic Greeks in Georgia and the Russian Caucasus also maintained this command of Turkish so as to communicate with their Muslim neighbours living in the region, most of whom used Turkish as a lingua franca or even adopted it as their first language irrespective of actual ethnic origin.Coene, ch. 1.

{{Main|Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate}}

File:Smariatur.JPG in Galata, Istanbul]]

The Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate ({{langx|tr|{{italics correction|Bağımsız Türk Ortodoks Patrikhanesi}}}}), also referred to as the Turkish Orthodox Church ({{langx|tr|{{italics correction|Türk Ortodoks Kilisesi}}}}), is an unrecognized autocephalous Eastern Orthodox organisation based in Turkey, descending from Turkish-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was founded in Kayseri by Pavlos Karahisarithis, who became the patriarch and took the name of Papa Eftim I, in 1922.{{cite web|url=http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20040123b.html|title=The Political Role of the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (so-called)|website=www.atour.com|access-date=21 January 2019}}

In 1922 a pro-Turkish Eastern Orthodox group, the General Congregation of the Anatolian Turkish Orthodox ({{langx|tr|{{italics correction|Umum Anadolu Türk Ortodoksları Cemaatleri}}}}), was set up with the support from the Orthodox bishop of Havza, as well as a number of other congregations{{Cite book |last=Özdalga |first=Elisabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=miMiD7-h00YC&q=Turkish+Orthodox&pg=PA152 |title=The Last Dragoman: Swedish Orientalist Johannes Kolmodin as Scholar, Activist, and Diplomat |date=2006-03-07 |publisher=I. B. Tauris |isbn=978-91-86884-14-7 |pages=152 |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Luffin |first=Xavier |date=2000 |title=Baba Eftim et l'Église orthodoxe turque: De l'usage politique d'une institution religieuse |url=https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=565615&journal_code=JECS |journal=Journal of Eastern Christian Studies |volume=52 |issue=1–2 |pages=73–95 |doi=10.2143/JECS.52.1.565615|url-access=subscription }}

On 15 September 1922 the Autocephalous Orthodox Patriarchate of Anatolia was founded in Kayseri by Pavlos Karahisarithis, a supporter of the General Congregation of the Anatolian Turkish Orthodox. On 6 June 1924, in a conference in the Church of the Virgin Mary (Meryem Ana in Turkish) in Galata, it was decided to transfer the headquarters of the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate from Kayseri to Istanbul. In the same session it was also decided that the Church of Virgin Mary would become the headquarter of the new Patriarchate of the Turkish Orthodox Church.

There have been a number of attempts from the 1930s into the 21st century to tie the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate with the ethnically Turkic, Greek Orthodox Gagauz minority in Bessarabia.[http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20040123b.html The Political Role of the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (so-called)] by Dr. Racho Donef A similar project was put into motion in October 2018, when the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the Republic of Moldova and toured the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia.{{cite news|url=https://www.nordicmonitor.com/2019/02/turkish-intelligence-linked-bogus-orthodox-church-campaigns-against-ecumenical-patriarch/|author=Abdullah Bozkurt|title=Turkish intel agency-linked bogus Orthodox church campaigns against ecumenical patriarch|publisher=NordicMonitor.com|date=5 February 2019|access-date=2 June 2020}}

File:TzarBorisDidacticGospelConstantinePreslavski.jpg|Boris I of BulgariaPeter B. Golden, Turks and Khazars: Origins, Institutions, and Interactions in Pre-Mongol Eurasia, Volume 952 of Collected studies, Ashgate/Variorum, 2010, {{ISBN|1409400034}}, p. 4.

File:Boris Savvin.jpg|Boris and Gleb

File:Князь Андрей Боголюбский.jpg|Andrey Bogolyubsky

File:Св. муч. Авраамий Болгарский (современная икона).jpg|Abraham of Bulgaria[https://oca.org/saints/lives/2012/04/01/100965-martyr-abraham-of-bulgaria "Martyr Abraham of Bulgaria", Orthodox Church in America]

File:Elisabeth von Ungarn (die Selige), *~1255, †vor 1323 .jpg|Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen of SerbiaKlaniczay, Gábor (2002). Holy Rulers and Blessed Princes: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-42018-0}}., p.439.

File:Saint Ahmet the Calligrapher.jpg|Ahmet the Calligrapher{{cite web|url=http://modeoflife.org/saint-ahmed-the-calligrapher-commemorated-on-3rd-may-and-the-24th-december-2/|title=SAINT AHMED THE CALLIGRAPHER - ModeOfLife|website=modeoflife.org|access-date=23 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160217002529/http://modeoflife.org/saint-ahmed-the-calligrapher-commemorated-on-3rd-may-and-the-24th-december-2/|archive-date=17 February 2016|url-status=dead}}

• Patriarchate conflict in Turkey
• Johannes Avetaranian, a Turkish mullah who converted from Islam to Christianity
• Mehmet Ali Ağca, former Grey Wolves militant who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II, converted from Islam to Christianity
• Turcopole

{{reflist}}

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Category:History of Christianity in Asia

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