In 330 AD, on May 11, Constantinople was founded and became the capital of Byzantine Hellenism (Byzantine Empire). A global reference point for many centuries. It radiates Greek spirit and Orthodoxy. It is the "New Rome" of Emperor Constantine the Great and passes into the memory of the Greeks as the "Reigning City" during the years of the Byzantine epic and as the "City" during the difficult years of Turkish rule. The Turks call it Istanbul, which is a paraphrase of the sentence "to the City". A symbol of the great idea of the nation "it will be ours again".
The presence of Greeks in areas of Turkey (Pontos, Asia Minor, etc.) is continuous and timeless. After the Asia Minor catastrophe, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1927, which provided that the Greeks of Constantinople and the Muslims of Western Thrace were exempt from the mandatory exchange of populations. After the signing of the treaty, a systematically organized plan of economic and physical extermination of the Greeks began. Specifically:. In 1923, Greeks from Constantinople, Tenedos and Imbros, 30.000 in number, fled to Greece to save themselves. They were forbidden to return and their property was confiscated. The elected rulers of Imbros and Tenedos were dismissed and Greek schools were forbidden to operate. In 1930, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey passed a law prohibiting Greeks from practicing 30 professions. The goal was obvious. Many came to Greece as refugees. In the period 1941-42, a law was passed, known as Varlik Vergisi, which imposed excessive taxation on our fellow countrymen. It is estimated that 2.000 Greeks lost their property. Furthermore, it recruits thousands of men aged 18 to 45 from Greeks, Jews and Armenians and leads them to the depths of Anatolia to the extermination camps. Until 1955, the Turkish press, with the blessings of the governments, tries to present the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greeks of Constantinople as seeking union with Greece and the revival of the Great Idea and the Roman Empire. An effort is made by the ruling Turks to fanaticize their citizens and especially the nationalists in order to use them at the right time.
The Turks believe that the right time has arrived. In the summer of 1955, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus is fighting for the union of the island with Greece. This effort is interpreted as a threat of the disappearance of the Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish Prime Minister Varlik Vergisi declares that on August 28, the Greeks will massacre the Turkish Cypriots. Moreover, the economic problems faced by our neighbors are due to the actions of the Greeks. The stage is set. The slogan remains for the mob and the fanatics to act in a planned and planned manner. The moment of the program has arrived.
A Turkish agent plants a bomb in the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki, which explodes and sets fire to the nearby house where Kemal Ataturk is believed to have been born. This was Oktay Engin, who was studying in Thessaloniki and who later became the commander of a Turkish region. That was it, the signal was given. The "news" quickly reached the city.
The assembled mob that had been transferred to the city for days, approximately 300.000 people, begins its work. It destroys everything that is non-Muslim and especially everything that is Greek Christian. Houses are burned, shops are looted and set on fire, churches are desecrated and priests are led to circumcision and to death. Others were stripped naked and paraded, forced to shout: "Cyprus is Turkish", while there are testimonies that a deacon was forcibly circumcised. Bishop Gerasimos of Pamphilos and the elderly monk Chrysanthos Mantas were beaten to death, while Metropolitan Gennadios of Heliopolis went insane from the beatings and died a short time later. From theν mob rage and cemeteries were desecrated. Women were raped. There was a plan to eliminate specific targets. Listed by name. The damages were very large, estimated at 1 to 2 billion Turkish liras at the time.
The press of the time wrote "death to the giaouris", "death to the Greek traitors", "forward for Thessaloniki and Athens" etc. These were the slogans that were heard during the looting. After the looting was completed at 02.00 on the 7thth On September 11, martial law was declared and things calmed down. The main event took place in Constantinople. Riots and looting also took place in Smyrna.
The sick and bedridden Greek prime minister could not react. After the elevation of Konstantinos Karamanlis to the prime ministership on October 6, 1955 and Greece's abstention from NATO exercises in the Mediterranean, Ankara was forced to render a basic moral satisfaction to Greece. On October 24, it honored the Greek flag, which was raised by the Turkish Foreign Minister, in a special ceremony at NATO headquarters in Izmir.
From 1955 to 1958, the Greeks of Constantinople made economic progress. From 1958, a cycle of persecution began again. Thus, this year, economic sabotage against professionals and merchants was manifested. In 1964, the Turks revoked the friendship treaty between the two countries, resulting in 65.000 Greeks being expelled without compensation from Constantinople by 1965. Also, in 1964, the law on "open prisons" began to be implemented on Imbros. With the free action and movement of prisoners on the island, the Greeks were forced to abandon it. In 1971, the crime was completed with the arbitrary expropriation of Greek property. In the same year, Ankara closed the Theological School of Halki.
Today, very few Greeks live in the city. They can be counted in thousands on the fingers of one hand. The Greek minority has disappeared. Most of them are elderly. The systematic effort of years has borne fruit. The Muslims of Thrace, Greek citizens, are increasing and multiplying because our homeland did not implement tactics of genocide and extermination of minorities.
We close with a few simple thoughts, always timely, because our neighbors to the east make sure to remind us of events that bring to the surface moments from their past of which they should not feel so proud.
We know how to guard Thermopylae. We know how to fight for our homeland, Greece, Freedom, Democracy and Liberty.
We have proven that we know these concepts that were born in Greece and that we have the strength to defend them. Until final victory. Until the last drop of our blood. A small memorial service to the innocent victims of the September Revolution or, as others call it, the "Night of Broken Glass".
Eternal memory.
Their blood waters Hellenism.
