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Turgut Özal

Christianity in Anatolia

"The greatest deaths achieve the greatest destinies."
Heraclitus of Ephesus

It was in Anatolia that Christianity ceased to belong exclusively to the Jews, `God's chosen people'. It was there that the road to the rest of the world was opened for the new religion.

St. Paul's contribution to this revolutionary success is well known. He was a Clinician of Jewish origin, and was born at Tarsus, a crossroads town situated not far from Antalya. Although proud of his Roman citizenship (he is known in Turkish by his Latin name of Paulus), he had nevertheless received a classical Greek education. It was this background, combined with his outstanding abilities and talents, which undoubtedly helped Paul to break the Jewish shell of the new religion.

Although he also preached Christianity outside Anatolia, it was in this region that Paul was most active. He succeeded in spreading Christianity through pagan Anatolia, which at that time was still a country of classical Greek culture.

The memory of the apostle St. John the Evangelist is closely linked to Ephesus. A tradition dating from the second century AD claims that John wrote his gospel at Ephesus, and that he died and was buried there. It does not seem necessary to establish whether St. John did actually live at Ephesus or not, since the most certain proof of his connection with that city seems to us to be found in the first phrases of his Gospel.

It is impossible not to hear in this an echo of the fragment of Heraclitus on the Logos.

The term logos does not have an equivalent in other languages. It means `discourse' (the Word). Heraclitus used it to signify a transcendent Reason, the principle determining all the fundamental laws which, under the appearance of disorder, govern the universe and nature, as well as the eternal equilibrium they have created. Without doubt St. John was influenced by the concept of the Logos which originated at Ephesus, at the point of intersection of science and metaphysics. Otherwise the same concept, the equivalent of which has been found nowhere else, would have had to have existed in Palestine at the time of St. John. Since the concept of the Logos is not encountered in any of the other Gospels, it effectively puts the seal of Ionia on the Gospel attributed to St. John.

However, it was Platonism, the most synthesized of all the systems of philosophy which were widespread in Anatolia during the second century, that particularly helped Christianity to penetrate the minds of educated pagans.

The pagan's relationship with God was founded on fear. If he caused the smoke of sacrifices to rise towards his god, if he placed offerings at the foot of his altar, it was so that divine power would spare him or those he loved from death, famine, dishonor, defeat. To obtain the salvation of the soul by adherence to a superior moral code, as Christianity sought to do, was an idea foreign to the pagan mind.

But it was not foreign to Platonism, which set above material things an eternal soul sensitive to Beauty, Goodness, and Truth; absolutes which were the goals of philosophy. Nor was Love absent from Platonism; Beauty or Truth or Goodness in itself being God.

This then was a language that many pagans already understood, and which was not so very far from the concepts of Christianity.

There is a well-known image which Plato invented to represent the human condition: that of a man who, living with his back to the entrance of a cave, takes for reality the shadows reflected on the rock walls by lights coming from outside. This image illustrates perfectly his metaphysical concept of life: the true life is beyond not here on earth. It is evident that views such as these had a considerable influence on the three great monotheistic religions, as well as on Sufism.

Conversely, in the third century there arose in the Greek academies a movement called `Neoplatonism', which dominated philosophy until the sixth century, and which was, in reality, the pagans' last line of defence against the progressive penetration of Christianity.

The source of all that exists is the absolute Unity, the ineffable One, that cannot be defined without limiting it, but which is called God. It creates `out of generosity', out of the infinite richness which is the endowment of perfection, and which spreads of itself. Thus, from the divine emanates firstly nous (mind), from nous the soul, from the soul the body and all that is material. But after each is engendered, it aspires to return to that which engendered it; it turns towards the perfection from which it came. The soul, therefore, seeks mystical union with the nous and the One.

`See,' the Neoplatonists seemed to be saying to the Christians, `how near we are to you! Why go any further?' The strength of Neoplatonism is demonstrated perhaps by the fact that no less a man than the Emperor Julian (the Apostate), disciple of Iamblichus, returned to paganism, abandoning Christianity.

Justinian put an end to the Neoplatonist movement by closing the academy at Athens in 529.

The presentation of Plato's ideas as a new religious metaphysical synthesis did not suffice to revive paganism. On the contrary, it provoked the growth of Christian theology, for the metaphysical views of Plato were in reality very close to monotheism, as well as being opposed to polytheism.

But although they were close to monotheism, they did not constitute a religion. The intelligence alone is incapable of -achieving union with God. Platonism included neither worship nor ritual, nor disciplinary method suitable to engage the soul on the road leading to God. To confuse Platonism with a religion was to confuse the philosopher with the prophet, and the intellectual and spiritual dimensions which they respectively represented.

Platonism and Neoplatonism did, in fact, serve as a common ground of understanding between the pagan of superior education but fairly simple religious sentiments and the Christian, whose religious life was intense but whose education was relatively poor. The struggle between these two modes of life and thought was lengthy and, even when it appeared to be over, the vanquished paganism re-emerged from time to time in various guises.

Did the decline of Neoplatonism, in so far as it was the last line of defence of paganism, signify the stagnation of rational philosophy until the Renaissance? One must believe so. However, it has to be recognized that Neoplatonism represented a fund of ideas that was already exhausted, from which nothing new could arise. Being also a movement more metaphysical than rational, it was easily assimilated by Christianity.

Christianity used the ideas of Plato as much to give itself a philosophical base as to convince educated pagans. The first Christian to criticize Greek polytheism and to attempt to reconcile Platonism and Christianity was St. Justin Martyr, around 165. Later came Clement of Alexandria and his disciple Origen, both of whom taught at Alexandria and wrote (in Greek) the first apologias and exegeses (second and third centuries). It was the birth of Christian theology.

The first Christians and their pagan contemporaries both saw with equal clarity that paganism could not be dissociated from classical Greek culture. Consequently the pagan was able to refuse Christianity and retain classical culture, while the Christians, repudiating classical culture, taxed it with being `worldly', and voluntarily relinquished science, history, theatre, and poetry. On the other hand, perhaps their cultural poverty denied them a choice.

To resume my case, I would say that the particular political and socioeconomic conditions of the city-state resulted in the birth in Anatolia of the great rational movement that lasted from the late archaic age until the classical age.

The conditions created by the Eastern Roman Empire, where for the first time a monotheistic religion was adopted as the State religion, were fundamentally different. They did not encourage the development of a secular rationalism. The scientific strides made by the Anatolian Physicists had ceased with the coming of Alexander, and would not begin again until much later.

After this brief look at the first encounters between Greek philosophy and Christianity, let us see how the latter evolved in Anatolia.

John was the youngest apostle and the most beloved by Jesus. He must have come to Ephesus when still fairly young, after a journey of five to six days by sea from Palestine. Although there is no proof, it is possible that he brought Mary with him: it was to John that the crucified Jesus would have entrusted his mother.

Seven kilometres from Ephesus rises Mount Solmissos, on whose slopes can be seen a village of a few houses. From there the Arralian valley descends to the Aegean coast three kilometres distant, and out to sea can be seen the island of Samos. It is this small village where, according to tradition, Mary is supposed to have lived and died. This will not be seen as an exaggerated claim on our part, if one recalls the great number of countries that claim with much less probability to have been visited by Mary.

The attributes of Mary were first discussed at the meeting of the Council in 431 in the Church of Mary at Ephesus. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, had claimed that Mary could not be the `Mother of God' although she was the mother of Jesus. Now the people of Ephesus, whose temple of Artemis was one of the seven Wonders of the World, believed that Artemis and her brother Apollo were born of the Mother-Goddess Leto, whom they considered mother of all the gods. Similarly, Cybele was regarded as `the Mother of the Gods' in Phrygia, at Athens, and in Italy. Under pressure from Ephesians who had recently become Christianized, and for whom such a concept was traditional, the council proclaimed Mary `Mother of God' (Theotokos) and Nestorius was declared a heretic.

The Epistles of St. John and St. Paul, arising from the difficulties of the first seven Christian churches founded in Anatolia (Ephesus, Pergamum, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphus, Thyatira, and Laodicea), represent a significant portion of the New Testament. These texts, and the developments which followed, demonstrate the major role played by Anatolia in the elaboration of Christian doctrine, the establishment of its liturgy, and the organization of its hierarchy.

As a result, it is generally accepted in the West that it was this Hellenizing influence which fundamentally differentiated Christianity from Judaism, even though it was originally an off-shoot from it. However, this is only partly true. In the Hellenizing process, the major role played by platonism or the metaphysical aspect of Greek philosophy was at the expense of the rest of the classical culture based on reason. From Ionian rationalism only the secular concept of logos was borrowed after it had been hallowed, even deified. On the other hand, the Cybele/ Attis motive, which found its way into the new religion, was not Hellenic but Anatolian in origin, so enabling one to speak in this sense of the Anatolianization of Christianity. This partial Hellenization led to the schism between `heart' and `mind' which could not be healed in post- Renaissance secular Western Europe. It is true, though, that the Anatolian aspect of the religion facilitated the rebirth of the individual when the social conditions in Renaissance Italy had once again become historically propitious.

However, Christianity did not develop only in Anatolia. It appeared and exerted considerable influence, both political and economic, as well as religious, among the Sassanids to the east, the Arabs to the south, the Bulgars, and Turkish tribes such as the Petchenegs, the Ouz, and the Caspians, and later the Slavs to the north and, finally, the Latins to the west.

It is therefore within the framework of the Eastern Roman Empire that we must follow the development of Christianity's relationship with the world.

Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire

Little by little, in this religious Empire special relationships became established between religion and the State.

The Emperor was not the religious head of the Church; he was its child. He was also the official protector and guardian of the orthodoxy. As such he retained till the end the power to call, and to preside over, its councils. These made all the important decisions concerning dogma - a system termed `theocracy' (pejoratively called `caesaropapism' in the West).

Officially, however, it was specified that government was based on a double authority (diarchy), one half religious and the other secular, just as the individual was considered to be ruled by both the soul and the body. Naturally the balance between the authority of the Patriarch and the Emperor tended to vary with their respective personalities.

Constantine named the Patriarch of Constantinople as head of the imperial civil hierarchy. But within the Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople came after the Pope and before the Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.

Conflict between the Pope and the Patriarch (or between the Papacy and the Eastern Roman Empire) was not long in starting, and was to influence the political history of the Empire, and consequently religious developments.

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Pope found himself under the `protection' of the barbarian Franks. Since he was already the most extensive landowner in Italy, he also exercised political rights and powers. These temporal powers gradually became extended so that the Church gained considerable influence in both temporal and spiritual matters.

The power of the Eastern Roman Empire, on the other hand, was mainly concerned with matters of religion. The Church remained subordinate to the State, having neither judicial nor political power. The Church did not have any significant political power until after the taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Until the time of Justinian, the Church had no function other than a religious one. It was Justinian who for the first time entrusted civil posts to priests, going so far as to allow towns to be governed by bishops. In this capacity they collected taxes, organized social aid, directed commerce, dispensed justice, led negotiations with barbarians, and sent soldiers to the front. It could be said that, at local and provincial levels, there was at times a complete merging of civil and religious affairs. Under the Ottomans, supposedly dominated by Islam, the Muslim clergy never enjoyed such civil powers.

Nevertheless, the Orthodox Church appeared to be much less hierarchical and less powerful than the Catholic Church. One of the reasons for this is that in the Eastern Church the priests were elected by the faithful; lay people and priests elected their bishops. According to the Orthodox viewpoint, this is what the Christian communion and brotherhood wanted. Furthermore, in the Orthodoxy, the influence of monks has always been preponderant, and ordinary priests could marry. The status of Orthodox priests in society was in that respect nearer to Islam, where no ecclesiastical class exists.

The Roman Church professes that original sin has, since Adam, been the heritage of all men. The sacrament of baptism is necessary to efface original sin, but man remains fallen. To gain salvation he needs the grace of God obtained through faith and good works. Conversely, Orthodox religion considers that human nature, deified in the person of Jesus Christ, is in itself pure and whole. It is only in coming into the world that each individual becomes a slave to it. He cannot escape this slavery except by uniting himself with God, that is to say, by communion. This takes place during the Mass, which gathers the faithful in the church into the presence of God and the Holy Spirit. Through communion they unite themselves with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and with his resurrection.

The dogma of salvation through communion with God ordains a narrow path, most suited to those of a mystical nature, which is why Orthodox ceremonies always constitute an experience of great spiritual intensity. To the extent that deep emotional bonds are created between those who participate in such a mystical communion, differentiation from those who belong to other religions and are excluded from that communion is intensified. Non-Orthodox Christians, for example, are not admitted to certain parts of the church. The Eastern Roman Empire perpetuated the same attitude by hardly tolerating non-Christians within its frontiers.

People with a mystical tradition in their religion, who now in modern times have become secularized, some even reaching the bounds of agnosticism or atheism, may, under certain circumstances, turn easily to national or other ideologies of an aggressive nature, whose violence is directed against minorities, social classes, or outside targets, resulting in persecutions, civil wars, or foreign adventures.

The Orthodox Christian does not try to merit grace for his salvation by good deeds but by `thesis', a process of divination of the man. Justification by good works appears to him to be a formula devoid of reason. It is left to the generosity or the mood of each person to interact with the world according to his own moral code, or according to his own self-interest. This could perhaps be construed as the cause of an absence of ethics in Eastern Roman society.

These crucial differences which existed between the two Churches rendered their theological quarrels and political rivalries more bitter and less reconcilable.

For a long time the Eastern Roman emperors, who never recognized the existence of an emperor in the West, nursed the ambition to reunite the West with their Empire, and thus restore religious unity. None of them succeeded in achieving this.

The Eastern Roman Empire had its share of early problems caused by the evolution of Christianity. It seems that no official measures were taken to Christianize the pagans until the time of Justinian. Justinian began by closing pagan temples. Then the barbarians of the north- west were only allowed to establish themselves on the imperial territory on condition that they became Christians. It is therefore inaccurate to claim that Christianity was propagated only by persuasion, whereas Islam was imposed by force. Furthermore, the attitude of Islam during the Ottoman Empire was different from that of Christianity during the Eastern Roman Empire. In contrast, the Ottomans tolerated a social system with several religions. The Christians always took this attitude of the Ottomans and the Turks for granted, and considered it normal.

It is clear that the influence of pagan rationalism lay behind some of the doctrinal problems which beset the first centuries of Christianity. Arianism (during the fourth century), for example, maintained that Jesus, born of a woman and dying after having suffered on the cross, could not therefore be first cause of the creation. It restored God as unique creator, and withdrew the divine character of the Son.


This doctrine, which went back to Platonism, was the cause of serious troubles because it spread among the Germanic tribes of the Balkans. In proclaiming the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son - or of the Father and the Word-the Council of Nicaea (325) put an end to the controversy, but not to the heresy, which reappeared in other forms.

Earlier I mentioned the case of the Patriarch Nestorius whose sect established itself in Persia, and spread as far as Central Asia and China. The Council of Chalcedon (451 ), proclaimed that in Jesus Christ there was a single person, that of the Word incarnate, and two natures, the one divine, the other human, `with no mixture nor confusion possible'.

Several bishops - among them the Egyptians - denied that there could be two natures in Jesus; he had only one, but different from that of the rest of humanity. The Patriarch of Alexandria, who defended this thesis, was also exiled. The Monophysite movement nevertheless provoked several schisms; the Coptic and Syrian Churches, for example, became Monophysites.

The emperors resorted to force to prevent dissemination of the heresy, but in vain. The difficulties thus caused were such that even putting an end to the barbarian menace might have been an easier problem to tackle.

This division of the Orthodox world ultimately facilitated the invasion of Egypt and Syria by the Arabs, the two Monophysite Churches preferring Arab tolerance. Toynbee considered the Christian `heresies' of Monophysitism, `Nestorianism, and others as pre-Islamic attempts of Syriac souls to de-Hellenize Christianity'.3 Throughout the period between the Muslim conquest of the Middle East in the eighth century and the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century, there was a steady drift towards Islam among these peoples, but as a result of the Crusades this drift turned into landslide con- version.

In the Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, troubles stemming from religion were insignificant. This was undoubtedly because the Islamic religion which reached the Ottomans had attained a certain maturity, having already passed through an earlier period of crises in the Middle East.

The doctrinal quarrels of the Eastern Roman Empire had scarcely subsided when, in the eighth century, the Icono- clash movement emerged. After the Emperor Leo the Isaurian had forbidden the worship of images as being contrary to the second of the Ten Commandments, which condemned idolatry, the movement gathered momentum. It went on to proscribe all representations of the Virgin and of Christ, as well as those of saints and angers, and then to destroy those which existed and to persecute anyone who wished to preserve them.

A sometimes violent opposition arose against those who destroyed mosaics, icons, and frescoes. Although the majority of the people, together with the army, supported the Iconoclast Emperor, a powerful minority protested and resisted. It consisted of a strong Christian movement, particularly among monks, reinforced by an old base of paganism-the image and the symbol occupy an important place in ancient pagan worship.

Platonism was also in favour of the conservation of icons - thinking of the image must lead to thinking of the original; the image was therefore useful. This point of view, however, was not far removed from the heretical standpoint, according to which the image contained the essence of the original. Be that as it may, the quarrel took on, yet again, a political dimension.

In fact, the Iconoclasts were neither against art nor against intellectual activity. They were allegedly against a cult which had become absolute, idolatrous, and irrelevant. They went on the offensive at the beginning of the ninth century, although the Council of Nicaea had condemned lconoclasm in 787. There was no return to the Orthodoxy until after a new Council convened in 842.

Nothing similar occurred under the Ottomans, because Islam was unequivocally opposed to idolatry. In Persia, the image had a long secular and artistic tradition which rendered it more independent of Islam. It was the same among the first Seljuk Turks, who took possession of Anatolia after having first established an empire in Persia. Perhaps behind the more extreme iconoclastic attitude adopted by the Ottomans lay the recollection of the severe struggle which unfolded in Anatolia. The use of icons there had been very widespread, which may have provoked, in reaction, the firm stance among the Islamic Ottomans similar to that of the Iconoclasts.

Eastern Roman art was profoundly influenced by the dispute about images. Firstly, the three dimensional had been renounced, pagan statues having given place to mosaics. Idolatry was thus avoided, while still preserving the representational purpose of the icon. It was a compromise solution. The anonymity of artists was traditional. Later, the same technique was applied to painting friezes and frescoes inside churches. In spite of the quarrel about images, the Eastern Roman Empire gave to the world the first religious art, and paintings which are masterpieces.

The Ottoman art of the miniature, although derived from the Central Asian Islamic art of the miniature, presents aspects in common with Byzantine iconography: the artist is usually anonymous, and the representation is in two dimensions.

Great architectural works are rarely found before the time of Justinian, who encouraged the construction of churches. These generally followed the layout of the first Christian basilicas, but with the addition of a lofty cupola intended to uplift the spirit. The cupola symbolized the idea of paradise on earth.

Byzantine architecture reached its peak, and took its definitive form, at Constantinople with Santa Sophia. It is the unique marvel of Byzantine architecture of this period, and I shall return to this subject later.

More numerous and more varied than the Byzantine heritage are the Seljuk legacies. These still exist, although the Seljuk Turks were only dominant for 150 to 200 years during a period when Anatolia was being ravaged by the crusaders and the Mongols.

We should note that the Western Roman Empire had disappeared less than a century after the creation of a Christian Empire. The Papacy had not been able to resist barbarian domination, and the establishment in the Bal- kans of various hostile tribes further inhibited communication between the Catholic and the Orthodox worlds.

From the sixth century the East abandoned Latin as its administrative language in favour of Greek, which had always been the language of culture and commerce since the days of Alexander the Great. In the ninth century the Germanic tribes in the West founded the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, and Aix-la-Chapelle, its capital, attempted desperately to rival Constantinople.

The Papacy and the Eastern Roman Empire subsequently entered into conflict over the Christianization of the pagans in the Balkans. The two parts of the Church, already culturally and geographically separated from each other, also became politically distanced.

The Papacy had been demanding primacy as the successor of St. Peter ever since the third century AD. Nevertheless, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 decided that the New Rome in the East should enjoy the same primacy as the Old Rome in the West. Because of the political superiority of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople actually had the primacy over Rome until Islam conquered Egypt, Syria, and Jerusalem, and until the Frankish forces put an end to the Eastern rule over central Italy and transferred it to the Papacy. Thus began the sovereignty or temporal power of the Papacy over the Papal States which steadily increased as time went by. After the Hildebrand Papacy the interference in the internal affairs of European countries grew to such an extent that it threatened their sovereignty. The papal bureaucracy expanded, and the consequent requirement for increasing revenues was partly met by direct taxation, accompanied inevitably by corruption. The papal succession process was debased by power politics.

The use of force in the Crusades had direct adverse effects on the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Inquisition was considered by the Orthodox to be the natural consequence of replacing the religious premise of love for one's neighbor with love for power. Indeed, the Papacy was a continent-wide theocracy, ruling the Papal States with effective temporal (State) power, while controlling the European states with politicized spiritual (Church) power. Thus a situation arose in which Church and State lost their independent identities; a situation which was clearly different from that of the Eastern Roman Empire. Primacy in this case entailed not only religious supremacy over the Patriarchate but also temporal power over the Empire. It can be seen, therefore, that fundamental differences were at the root of the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches. The concept of the infallibility of the Pope, introduced in 1870, only made matters worse.

We should remember that the Eastern Roman Empire prepared the way for, and prefigured, the Ottoman Empire. With that in mind, it would perhaps now be useful to retrace the outlines of the political history of the Eastern Roman Empire after the relationship between religion and the State had evolved.

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