The FUEN Resolutions in Support of the Greek-Orthodox Community of Istanbul

The Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) is the largest umbrella organisation representing the interests of autochthonous, national and linguistic minorities in Europe. Founded in 1949, it brings together more than 100 member organisations from across Europe and works to protect minority identities, languages, cultures and rights and to promote their effective participation in public life.

An important instrument in FUEN’s advocacy is the adoption of resolutions submitted by its member organisations. Through these resolutions, FUEN brings specific concerns of minority communities to the attention of national governments and European and international institutions, while proposing concrete measures to address existing problems.

As a member of FUEN, the Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans (EFC) has repeatedly used this mechanism to draw attention to the situation of Istanbul's historical Greek-Orthodox community. The claims communicated through the five resolutions, submitted between 2014 and 2025, reveal a range of issues of concern:

• 2014 – the need for remedy and reparation for past violations, including the restoration of citizenship, recovery of property and support for the repatriation of members of the community who had been forced to leave Istanbul.
• 2015 – the international protection of minority rights, with particular emphasis on rejecting interstate reciprocity and the political instrumentalisation of minorities in relations between states.
• 2016 – the legal status and self-administration of non-Muslim minority institutions, particularly the functioning and governance of minority welfare foundations, elections to their administrative bodies, and the restitution and management of Greek-Orthodox religious properties.
• 2022 – the demographic decline of the Greek-Orthodox community and its consequences for the sustainability of its institutions, particularly the welfare foundations, alongside the need to enable greater participation of the expatriated community and support the return of younger generations.
• 2025 – the increasingly urgent question of the survival and demographic revitalisation of the Greek-Orthodox community in Istanbul, including acknowledgement of past events and support for the return of younger members of the expatriated community through EFC’s Programme HOPE.

Taken together, the resolutions reveal that while ten years ago, the community was mostly concerned with the historical injustice and restitution and institutional rights, nowadays, the demographic decrease is exposing the historically established minority to an existential challenge as the population numbers are falling below the level necessary to sustain the minority institutions and the community as such.

The Historical Background

The alarming demographic crisis of recent years has its historical reasons. The Greek-Orthodox, or Rum, community of Istanbul is one of the city's oldest historical communities. Its roots go back to the Byzantine period, and its presence continued after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Under the Ottoman Empire, the Orthodox population was organised within the millet system around the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and played an important role in the commercial, educational, cultural and religious life of the Ottoman capital. Taşkın notes that the community enjoyed forms of collective organisation under the Ottoman system which were subsequently replaced by minority guarantees under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[1]

The political and demographic transformations accompanying the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern Turkish and Greek states fundamentally changed the community's position. Following the Greco-Turkish War, the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, signed at Lausanne in January 1923,[2] provided for the compulsory exchange of Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Turkey and Muslim inhabitants of Greece. The Greek-Orthodox inhabitants of Constantinople and the Muslim inhabitants of Western Thrace were, however, exempted from the exchange.

The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 subsequently established the principal international legal framework for the protection of non-Muslim minorities in Türkiye. Its Articles 37–45 provide guarantees concerning equality, religion, language, education and minority institutions. Particularly relevant to the Greek-Orthodox community are the provisions on the right of non-Muslim minorities to establish, manage, and control their own charitable, religious, and social institutions and schools. Taşkın identifies these Lausanne guarantees as the foundation of the collective rights subsequently exercised by the Greek-Orthodox community.[3]

At the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the Greek-Orthodox population of Istanbul remained substantial. According to the figures cited by EFC, approximately 125,000 Greek Orthodox lived in Istanbul in 1923, representing around 15 per cent of the city's population. Taşkın similarly documents the dramatic subsequent demographic decline, noting a population of around 100,000 in the early Republican period and only a few thousand by the beginning of the twenty-first century.[4]

Over the following decades, the community's position progressively deteriorated. Its demographic decline resulted not from a single event but from a succession of discriminatory measures and periods of political tension. EFC identifies among the most significant the mobilisation of non-Muslim men into labour battalions in 1941–1942, the discriminatory Varlık Vergisi (Wealth/Capital Tax) of 1942–1944, the 6–7 September 1955 pogrom, and the deportations and forced migration beginning in 1964.

The events of 6–7 September 1955 represented a particularly serious turning point. Greek homes, businesses, churches and other community institutions in Istanbul were extensively attacked and damaged. The events contributed to growing insecurity within the community and accelerated the departure of part of its population. They have subsequently become an important element of the community's demands for historical recognition, including in EFC's 2025 FUEN resolution.[5]

The 1964–1965 expulsions had an even more direct demographic impact. Introduced against the background of renewed Greek-Turkish tensions over Cyprus, they formally targeted Greek nationals residing in Istanbul but had consequences for the wider Greek-Orthodox community. Families often included both Greek and Turkish citizens, meaning the departure of expelled Greeks also encouraged or necessitated the departure of relatives who were Turkish nationals. Kaliber's detailed study of the expulsions describes them as a mass expulsion of Istanbul Greeks in 1964 and 1965 and situates them within the broader transformation of the Greek community's position in Türkiye.[6]

As a consequence, the community, which numbered more than 100,000 people during the first half of the twentieth century, was reduced within several decades to only a few thousand. EFC's most recent assessment presents an even more critical situation: according to its 2025 resolution, fewer than 1,000 members of the historical community remain in Istanbul, while approximately 99 per cent of Constantinopolitans now live outside the city. These figures reflect EFC's assessment of the historical Constantinopolitan community and should be distinguished from broader estimates that may include other Greek-Orthodox populations living in Türkiye.

The Complexity of Problems Faced by the Greek-Orthodox Community in Istanbul

Although the negative impact of this demographic transformation extends considerably beyond population numbers, such as the community political representation, the management of minority foundations, the functioning of cultural associations and schools, and ultimately its capacity to exercise the collective rights formally guaranteed to it, Taşkın highlights that nowadays the minority is not as much concerned with the “right to be equal” as with the “right to be”. [7] The resolutions submitted by the EFC confirm this conclusion, as their focus over the years has gradually shifted. Nevertheless, attention needs to be paid to all the problems highlighted by the FUEN documents.

Remedy for historical violations

The first and most persistent theme concerns the consequences of the policies that led to the mass departure of the Greek-Orthodox population from Istanbul. Linking the present-day condition of the community with the expulsions of 1964 and the broader period of anti-minority measures, the 2014 resolution explicitly calls for multidimensional measures, such as:

• restoration of citizenship to members who lost it,
• legal assistance in recovering property,
• practical support for repatriation,
• restitution of property belonging historically to Greek-Orthodox institutions, and
• resolution of outstanding institutional problems affecting the minority.

This constitutes an important feature of the EFC approach: the objective is not restricted to compensation for past violations. Remedy is linked directly to the future viability of the community. Restoration of citizenship, property and institutional links is seen as a means of reconnecting the expatriated Constantinopolitan population with its traditional homeland.

Minority rights and the problem of reciprocity

The 2015 resolution places the Constantinopolitan case within the broader problem of minority protection in interstate relations. EFC draws attention to the tendency to treat minorities as extensions of a kin-state and to make the extent of their protection dependent on political relations between states or on the treatment of another minority across the border.

This issue has particular historical relevance to Greek-Turkish relations, in which the position of the Greek-Orthodox minority in Türkiye and that of Muslim/Turkish minorities in Greece have repeatedly been discussed through the language of reciprocity. The resolution argues that minority rights derive from international human-rights standards and belong to minority members independently of interstate political disputes. It therefore asks states to refrain from depicting minorities as instruments of kin-states or using their position to advance political or irredentist claims.

The underlying principle is that deterioration in relations between two states cannot justify restrictions on the rights of their respective historical minorities. Minority protection must consequently be based on the rights and needs of the community concerned rather than on a reciprocal calculation of how another state treats another minority.

Minority welfare foundations and institutional self-administration

A second central issue is the status and functioning of the Greek-Orthodox welfare foundations. These institutions are particularly important because they constitute the principal recognised legal structures through which the community manages churches, schools, charitable institutions, hospitals and property.

The 2016 resolution concentrates on restrictions affecting these foundations. It recalls Articles 40 and 42 of the Lausanne Treaty and argues that the community's right to manage its charitable and religious institutions is an integral part of Türkiye's treaty obligations.

At the time of the resolution, elections to the administrative bodies of non-Muslim welfare foundations had been suspended following the cancellation of the previous election regulation in 2013. EFC regarded the prolonged absence of a replacement regulation as a serious interference with minority communities' ability to govern their own institutions.

The resolution additionally addresses foundations placed under Mazbut or “fused” status, under which their administration passed to the state authorities. EFC calls for recognition of their legal personality and their return to administration by the Greek-Orthodox community. It also demands the restitution of three churches and associated properties in Karaköy/Galata that, according to the resolution, had for decades been occupied by the self-declared Turkish-Orthodox Church. For EFC, foundations represent the minority's institutional continuity and capacity for self-organisation. Restrictions on their governance therefore affect the community's ability to reproduce itself institutionally.

Property and religious institutions

Property issues recur throughout the resolutions. The historical confiscation or loss of minority assets weakened not only individual families but also the community's collective economic base. Churches, monasteries, schools, hospitals and charitable foundations depend on property for their continued operation. The 2014 resolution therefore requests assistance with reacquiring private property and returning properties that historically belonged to minority institutions. The 2016 resolution builds on this by identifying particular foundation and church properties whose legal status or administration remained contested.

Some progress has taken place through reforms introduced since the early 2000s, including mechanisms for the restitution of certain properties to minority foundations. Nevertheless, the wider problem of the legal status of religious communities and their institutions remains unresolved, as the European Commission also noted.[8]

The practical functioning of minority institutions

By 2022, demographic decline had become a principal issue and directly affected the functioning of minority institutions. The fewer than 1,000 Greek-Orthodox community members in Istanbul have started facing serious challenges in maintaining approximately 70 welfare foundations. The 2022 election rules reportedly required around 650 administrators for these foundations, creating an obvious structural problem for such a small resident community.

EFC's criticism of elections was not that they are restricted, but that rules designed for a much larger community fail to account for the consequences of its historical demographic depletion. Particularly problematic, from its perspective, is the exclusion of expatriate community members from participating in foundation elections. Hence, this issue underscores the need for restorative justice to ensure contemporary institutional viability. EFC therefore argues for arrangements allowing members living abroad to participate in community governance.

Historical acknowledgement and repatriation as preconditions for community survival

As early as 2014, EFC asks Türkiye to provide “ethical and efficient support” for the return of expatriated Constantinopolitans. In 2022, this becomes more specific: FUEN calls for active support for repatriating young people from the expatriated community. The 2025 urgent resolution makes this the central strategy for survival. With fewer than 1,000 members remaining in Istanbul and approximately 99 per cent of the historical community living abroad, EFC argues that even the return of a relatively small number of younger people could significantly affect the community's viability.

To this end, EFC has developed Programme HOPE, containing concrete proposals aimed at facilitating such return. The FUEN resolution does not reproduce the programme's individual measures, so they cannot be specified from the resolution itself, but it explicitly calls on the Turkish Government to examine the proposals and cooperate with EFC on their implementation.

Finally, the 2025 resolution adds an important element of historical acknowledgement. On the seventieth anniversary of the September 1955 pogrom, EFC calls on the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye to investigate the events and disclose those responsible. This demand links historical recognition with contemporary reconciliation. From the EFC perspective, acknowledging the causes of the community's demographic destruction is part of establishing the conditions for renewed trust and encouraging members of the expatriated community to reconnect with Istanbul.

What is the situation today?

As the overview of the resolutions reveal, the problems faced by the historical minority in Türkiye are closely interrelated: historical violations produced demographic displacement; displacement weakened community institutions; the reduced population now makes those institutions increasingly difficult to sustain; and without mechanisms reconnecting the expatriated community with Istanbul, formal protection alone may not be sufficient to guarantee the community's long-term survival. Hence, the current striking issue is no longer solely whether the remaining members of the minority enjoy formal rights. It is whether the population will remain large enough for the community to exercise those rights, administer its institutions, and transmit its identity to future generations.

However, some recent measures by the Turkish state offer hope for future positive developments regarding support for minorities. Since the early 2000s, Türkiye has introduced a number of reforms concerning non-Muslim minorities and their foundations, including measures permitting the restitution of some previously confiscated properties. EFC itself acknowledges that Turkish governments have recognised some past wrongs, introduced certain remedial measures and established direct communication with the Federation.

Another important development was the adoption in June 2022 of a new regulation governing elections to community foundations, after a prolonged period during which elections could not be held. Most minority foundations subsequently elected new boards. Nevertheless, questions concerning their autonomy, governance and practical capacity to operate remain particularly important for the Greek-Orthodox community, whose very small resident population must sustain a comparatively extensive network of historical foundations and institutions.

Important structural problems, however, still remain in the broader legal framework governing non-Muslim religious communities. The European Commission's 2025 Türkiye Report states that the lack of legal personality for non-Muslim religious communities remains unresolved, notably regarding the legal status of places of worship. It also reports that the recommendation allowing the Greek-Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch to use the title “Ecumenical” has not been consistently implemented.[9]

The international minority-protection framework applicable to the community is also more limited than in many other European minority cases. Türkiye has neither signed nor ratified the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), as confirmed by the Council of Europe's current treaty information.[10] Türkiye is likewise not a party to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML). The Greek-Orthodox community therefore does not benefit from the dedicated monitoring mechanisms established under these Council of Europe minority instruments. Its specific international minority protection continues to rest primarily on the Treaty of Lausanne, supplemented by Türkiye's obligations under general international human-rights instruments and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The current challenge is consequently different from the historical one. The immediate problem is no longer the mass expulsions and discriminatory measures of the mid-twentieth century. Rather, it concerns their long-term demographic and institutional consequences. A population reduced to a fraction of its former size faces increasing difficulties maintaining institutions originally created for a much larger community. This explains the shift visible in the EFC resolutions: while the earlier texts focus predominantly on restitution, equality, property and institutional rights, the 2022 and 2025 resolutions increasingly concentrate on demographic survival, participation of the expatriated Constantinopolitan community and the possible return of younger generations to Istanbul.

The underlying question has thus shifted from how to protect the rights of the Greek-Orthodox minority to how to maintain a sufficiently viable community in Istanbul to exercise those rights in the first place. This demographic dimension provides the essential context for understanding the problems raised by EFC through its FUEN resolutions.

References

[1] Taşkın, B. (2017) ‘From “right to be equal” to “right to be”: Greek-Orthodox Community in Istanbul’, Research and Policy on Turkey, 2(1), pp. 105–117. DOI: 10.1080/23760818.2017.1296332. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23760818.2017.1296332

[2] League of Nations (1925) Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations and Protocol, signed at Lausanne, 30 January 1923, League of Nations Treaty Series, Vol. 32, No. 807, pp. 75–87. Available at: https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/lon/volume%2032/v32.pdf

[3] See note 1

[4] ibidem

[5] Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) (2025) Urgent Resolution 2025-11: Ensuring the Survival of the Existence of the Greek-Orthodox Minority in Istanbul, submitted by the Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans. FUEN Assembly of Delegates, Bozen/Bulsan/Bolzano, 24 October 2025. Available at: FUEN website

[6] Kaliber, A. (2019). Re-engaging the self/other problematic in post-positivist international relations: the 1964 expulsion of Greeks from Istanbul revisited. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 19(3), 365–386. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2019.1651082

[7] See note 1

[8] European Commission (2023) Türkiye 2023 Report, SWD(2023) 696 final, 8 November 2023. Brussels: European Commission. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52023SC0696

[9] European Commission (2025) Türkiye 2025 Report, SWD(2025) 756 final. Brussels: European Commission. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025SC0756

[10] Council of Europe (2026) Chart of Signatures and Ratifications of Treaty 157: Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Treaty Office. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/?module=signatures-by-treaty&treatynum=157