I spent my third day in Istanbul walking slowly through neighborhoods. I walked down a hill and found myself drifting into a coffee shop. Without speaking a word I ordered a spiced chai and was taken to a table across the street. Sitting down, I found myself within an environment I was slowly getting used to. I saw a series of plastic tables sprawled across the pavement, occupied by men of different classes who seemed unbothered by the morning’s rising heat and increasingly loud traffic. Inside, was the sound of steaming coffee and fast conversation.
The air was melting in the heat while a pudgy Turkish kid wearing a t-shirt one size too small bounced between tables pitching an idea that nobody seemed amused by. I locked eyes with the dealer, probably no older than 10 years old, as he approached me. In his palm was a pack of gum, laid across his fingers as if it were a delicacy. The boy spoke as if he were not only selling a product but a lifestyle, yet within his passionate words, the only syllables I could understand were “five lira, five lira.”
It was not uncommon to have a moment of peace disrupted by a salesman in Istanbul, but I had yet to meet one who was as convincing as this kid. So, we worked out a deal and I made an investment of 10 Lira, which is 37 cents in USD, for his pack of gum. After the transaction, the boy paraded his 10 Lira around the coffee shop as if it were a holy relic. Repeatedly, he would tell an uninterested group of men, they would turn to me with half a smile, and the young Turk would put his hand to his chest as a sign of thanks. Unbeknownst to me, mass had begun down the road.
Continuing my wandering, I came across a Greek Orthodox church. At this point in my travels, their pillars had a warming familiarity compared to the minarets of Sunni Mosques. My Papou (Greek for grandpa) has been proud to share the heritage with me since I was young. So, while the Greek language is as foreign to me as Arabic or Turkish, it felt like a step closer to a world I knew.
Beyond a steel gate was a courtyard where a man and a woman stood talking to one another. I waved to them and they motioned for me to come in, so I did. They watched as I approached and the woman smiled before gesturing toward the church entrance. Mass had already begun within.
I found myself standing amongst twelve others whose eyes were trained on the priest who was leading prayer in his deep melodic voice. Following his prayer, the congregation formed a single file line toward the altar. Then, one by one I watched the devotees kiss the hand of their father and take a loaf of bread wrapped in parchment from a wicker basket. I had come this far, so I joined everyone else in line. However, when I reached the heavily bearded Orthodox priest I did not grab his hand and kiss his white knuckles, instead, I did what seemed like the second most appropriate thing to do: a formal bow, which in turn felt really corny. I grabbed my loaf of bread and followed the crowd outside.
Istanbul is many things, but parts of it are far from relaxing. The courtyard of the Orthodox Church, however, transported me to a place free from streets clouded by cigarette smoke and the radiation of roasting shawarma. It was quiet and somehow a breeze had carved its way in over the walls. I was not ready to leave a place that had given me a breath of fresh air, and it seemed neither was anyone else. I sat on a bench and watched the parishioners talk with one another in the shade. The mid-day sun had speared through a tree above our heads, illuminating the greenness of its leaves. In another corner of the courtyard was a tiny gatehouse with vines growing up to decorated windowsills. It looked like it belonged in a small Greek village near the Aegean Sea.
The woman who had invited me inside emerged from the gatehouse carrying a tray of pastries. She made eye contact with me and using her head, the only extremity available to do so, she directed me to join the rest of the bunch. As the croissants and sweets arrived, the crowd floated to a long table beneath the tree. An organized movement of chairs indicated that this sort of meeting had happened many times before. Similarly, tea was poured and handed out as if I had ordered it moments earlier. I sat in silence, sipped my chai, and watched. Things continued to unfold without moving an inch. I knew all of this would make a lot more sense if I just wasn’t there. I remembered earlier how the little boy I had bought gum from put his hand on his chest as a sign of thanks and so I followed suit in an attempt to communicate some sort of gratitude.
The priest came out from his chambers and sat across from me along with other holy-looking men. They all wore big black robes and had the facial hair to go with it. People continued to fill chairs, yet the one next to me remained open. The woman on pastry duty seemed to also be the social director. She pointed to people and ordered them to sit in certain places. Eventually, she instructed someone to sit next to me. I saw him walking over and I became tense. A conversation was on the horizon, I hadn’t had one of those all day.
It was a man in his early thirties, with short brown hair and a casual stature. He sat down and said, “hey how’s it going,” with an excited energy as if we’d known each other in high school. Harry was the only American I met in Turkey and we came across one another in the strangest of circumstances.
“It’s the best place in the world, we are literally in the middle of the world,” said Harry with an equal amount of animation in his hands and eyes. I became inspired and intrigued by his passion for that place and the ideas that circulated there. I had many questions and he had many answers, thus we were bound to spend the next hour sipping tea in the courtyard.
Harry was right. Every location is the sum total of its influences, and Istanbul has many. We were on the edge of Europe. Sitting at the edge of that table I tried to imagine Istanbul sitting in the middle of the crossroads and all the visitors who had passed through for hundreds of years. However, that day, sitting back in our chairs in the year of 2023 while slowly and reverently drinking our chai, our topic of conversation circled around Turkey and its recent history.
Harry had arrived by bus from Thessaloniki where he was learning the Greek language. I learned that he had studied theology in the States, contributing to an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge on the subject. He had even spent time in the monasteries of Mount Athos, a region of Greece dedicated to strict Orthodox practices. This pursuit was inspired by his Greek heritage and faith. Now, he had come to Istanbul to retrace the steps of his grandfather.
His grandfather’s name was Christos Daphnides. Christos grew up on a street called Kalyoncu Kulluğu, in a neighborhood called Beyoğlu, in a city called İstanbul. 100 years ago on the street we rested near, one could find hundreds of Greek families like the Daphnides. Today, the Beyoğlu Hagia Constantine Greek Orthodox Church is seemingly the only reminder of what the neighborhood once was.
Harry had tried to contact the church via email but had failed, so he arrived in Istanbul with low expectations. His cadence was pensive as he unfolded his journey in a string of flowy sentences. He had arrived in Beyoğlu, where he met the members of the church I was now drinking tea with. He had visited his grandfather’s grade school, now a guesthouse behind the church, and his middle school, Zorgrafio, where he discovered old school records, even one with a photograph of young Christos. Furthermore, he had taken a ferry to Halki, one of the Prince’s islands off the coast of the city where Christos had attended a theological school.
Christos left Istanbul in 1955 following violent uprisings against Greek populations in Turkey known as “Septembriana.’ State-led riots and massacres aimed at expelling the Greek population in Turkey were fueled by an ever-expanding Post-Ottoman identity. One which aimed to expel both Western culture and Orthodoxy. The history of Modern Turkish ideology begins with these nationalistic sentiments spearheaded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This history also explains the complicated relationship between Turkey and its neighbor: Greece.
In 1920, a post WWI treaty signed by the Allies and the Ottoman Empire ceded large parts of Modern Turkey to France, England, Italy, and Greece. This is true for much of the Middle East and Africa leading to many contemporary global issues.
In this case study, Greek encroachment on former Ottoman soil in the early 20th century is a story of great miscalculation. In response to the Ottoman defeat, Turkish Nationalists formed the Grand National Assembly, claimed sovereignty of Ankara, and thus began the Turkish War of Independence. Under Atatürk’s command, Ottoman and local uprisings were bested, Greek advancements toward Ankara were halted, while other European colonizers withdrew from the country. The Greco-Turkish conflict climatically ended in Izmir with the massacre of Armenians and Greeks in the peninsula city. Furthermore, a population exchange was enacted between Greece and Turkey causing the migration of 1.6 million people.
I became familiar with Atatürk’s face before knowing any of this information. The presidential photograph of the ‘Father of modern Turkey’ decorates bars, gift shops, street corners, and restaurants. The national identity originating with Atatürk’s presidency is widely celebrated.
As for Christos, he eventually immigrated to the United States and opened up an advertising firm in New York City. Harry’s trip, emotional and inspiring, was coming to an end. He was headed back to Greece that night, but he assured me he would be back. Before we parted ways I asked if it was okay that I took communion despite not being Greek Orthodox and he assured me that that was definitely against the rules. There was no turning back now, I had chosen a life of crime. I made my great escape back into the fast moving heat of Istanbul streets.
Projects by JT Schultz 