Turkey presents itself as a shining example of democracy and tolerance in the Muslim world, yet religious freedom for Christians is virtually non-existent. Michael Kelly reports

Among the followers of Christ that St Paul wrote his letters to in the early Church, the Christians of Ephesus appear to have been an extremely vibrant community. Some ancient traditions hold that St John the Evangelist and one of the twelve apostles brought the Gospel to Ephesus following the death and resurrection of Jesus.

By all accounts the early Church that centred around Ephesus was a vibrant faith-filled community. The town of Ephesus still exists today in modern-day Turkey, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a Christian there nowadays.

Christianity continued to flourish in the region that is now modern-day Turkey and by the year 330 Emperor Constantine had established the eastern seat of the Roman Empire. As Christianity began to take root local churches, usually founded by one of the twelve apostles, emerged as important sees presided over by Patriarchs.

Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) was such a See and the Patriarch of Constantinople soon emerged as the most-important Churchman in the eastern world of Christianity, so much so, in fact, that his followers began to refer to the city as ''New Rome''.

The violent spread of Islam, however, put an end to the Christian Byzantine Empire. Christians were forced to flee westwards and the advancing Muslim armies were only stopped at the gates of Vienna.

Tolerated

Tensions eased down the centuries and, while the Ottoman Empire remained a Muslim confessional state, Christians were tolerated with a fair degree of flexibility across Ottoman lands.

The growth of the Ottoman Empire was phenomenal; by the time of the defeat of the Ottomans at the end of World War I (1914-1918) the Turks occupied most of the Middle East including modern-day Israel, Jordan, Syria and Palestine.

(Right: Pope Benedict XVI and Orthodox Ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople during the Pope's 2006 visit to Turkey)

From the time of the Great Schism in 1054, the Patriarch of Constantinople had emerged as the spiritual leader of eastern Christendom against the western influence of the Bishop of Rome. In the complex religious and ethnic mix that characterised the Ottoman Empire the Patriarch of Constantinople continued to exercise a leadership role within Eastern Christianity. He was accepted among Orthodox believers as primus inter pares (first among equals) and spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox community. His own flock, however, continues to diminish as subtle and not-so-subtle forms of persecution go on.

Today, the current Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Barthomelow I, leads a tiny (and dwindling) Christian community of just 64,000 Christian believers in a country with a population of almost 73 million people.

While the modern Turkish Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal AtatÏrk in 1923 promised to be a pluralist home for all believers, the continued policies of successive Turkish governments have made it clear that Christians are not welcome.

Murdered

A Catholic priest was murdered by an Islamist extremist in 2006 while Christian property has frequently been attacked and destroyed.

The current government, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, like to characterise discrimination and violence against Christians as the action of a few extremists insisting that Turkey is welcoming to believers of all faiths and of none, government policy and legislation, however, show the opposite to be true, particularly when it comes to Orthodox believers.

While officially a secular republic, Turkey insists on interfering with the internal running of the Orthodox Church. Severe restrictions are placed on the election of a new Patriarch of Constantinople in a way unthinkable in any western liberal democracy.

The Turkish government, for example, imposes restrictions on the election of the Ecumenical Patriarch and Hierarchs who vote for him by requiring that they must be Turkish citizens. In fact, the government arbitrarily can veto any candidate for the position of Ecumenical Patriarch.

Justifiable rage

Can you imagine the justifiable rage and indignation if Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlasconi tried to insist that the Pope must be an Italian? Or, for example, if the Italian government sought to restrict the papal conclave to only Italian cardinals?

With the dwindling population of Hierarchs and Orthodox Christians in Turkey, there is a real fear that the Church may not be able to elect an Ecumenical Patriarch in the not-too-distant future. According to Patriarch Barthomelow himself ''this is tantamount to the asphyxiation of the leadership of the Holy Mother Church and a clear illustration of the direct intervention of the Turkish government in ecclesiastical matters''.

Not content to control who should lead the Church, the Turkish government has also forbidden the training of Orthodox priests in the country by forcibly closing the theological school at Halki. Since its closure, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has had to send the young men from its community desiring to enter the priesthood to one of the theological schools in Greece. In many instances, the young priests do not return given the onerous restrictions in getting work permits.

Despite promises by the Turkish government to re-open the theological school, there has been no progress since 1971.

Through various methods, the Turkish authorities have also confiscated thousands of properties from the Ecumenical Patiarchate and the Greek Orthodox community including monasteries, church buildings, an orphanage, private homes, apartment buildings, schools and land.

Against this backdrop, the Christian community of Turkey continues to diminish greatly.

Hostility

In a recent example of the immense hostility suffered by Christians in the country, the graves of Orthodox Christians were dug up and destroyed. The desecration led Patriarch Barthomelow to plead for a let up in intimidation: ''Have we not suffered enough, without being at all to blame, except that we are Greek by origin and Orthodox in faith? Do we not honour the name of the country in which we live with honesty, diligent work, our high degree of civilisation, our beautiful customs and traditions, and our rich history?

''Is it not enough that so few of us have remained here? Should we be expected to endure more? Indeed, should this be expected by our ancestors who 'are asleep' awaiting the common resurrection?'' he asked.

Turkey is a proud member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and has long-harboured aspirations of becoming a member of the European Union (EU). While most European leaders seem hostile towards Turkey's membership of the EU, the bloc does hold regular meetings with the Turkish authorities and the country officially has ''candidate status''.

Democracy

Turkey's leaders are desirious of the approval of the western world yet seem to do little to try and prove that they are willing to be an open, tolerant democracy. Is it too much to ask that in Muslim Turkey the Christian community, resident in the region hundreds of years before the founding of Islam, might enjoy the same basic civil rights as Muslims are readily and willingly afforded in predominately-Christian pluralist countries in the west?

The EU must continue to hold Turkey to account and make it clear that, in the absence of human rights reforms that respect the rights of all citizens, Turkey is incompatible with European values.

While Turkish leaders often claim that their exclusion from the EU is as a result of perceived Islamophobia, the sad reality is that the exclusion is as a result of Turkey's unwillingness or inability to embrace freedom of conscience, thought and religion.