“I put myself into their place. I would be in the same situation. I would be the one who escaped from the war, from this conflict, and they came here and you know Turkish hospitality,” says Savas Metin, general secretary of the Turkish nongovernmental aid organization called Kimse Yok Mu. “They came to our country, and it is our duty to help them.” More →

March 13, 2015

“We are confident that someday this school will reopen, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day,” says Metropolitan Elpidophoros, the abbot of Halki. He has reestablished a monastery at the site of the distinguished Eastern Orthodox seminary closed by the Turkish government for 43 years. More →

January 23, 2015

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees depend on hospitality in Turkey; artists picture Mary the mother of Jesus; a church invites the community to a Messiah sing-along. More →

December 19, 2014

“East and West are not contradictory to each other. They are part of the same body,” says Metropolitan Elpidophoros, a bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul. “And in the last years, thank God, we have extremely good relations.” More →

November 21, 2014

Some Turkish Alawites say their concerns are driven less by sympathy for the Assad regime than by a fear of what might replace it. More →

January 4, 2013

“If there is a new state, presumably there will more religious tolerance,” says Middle East author and analyst Geneive Abdo. “We can only hope so.” More →

February 11, 2011

“I think it’s fair to say that Islam has had some difficulty in coming to terms with modernity,” says sociologist of religion William Martin, who believes that the Gülen movement “offers a much more positive picture of what Islam can be.” More →

January 21, 2011

Germany has twice as many mosques as the United States, but it still has a long way to go to provide equal opportunities for Muslim immigrants and their children. More →

October 30, 2009

KIRI OZTURK (reading to her children from a children’s book): Allah made camels with great big humps. Allah made elephants with long, slinky trunks. KIM LAWTON: In a suburb of Istanbul, Kiri and Orhan Ozturk are teaching their kids about … More →

April 6, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI called his trip to Turkey “a mission of dialogue, brotherhood and reconciliation,” and in his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country, the pope took every opportunity to express his respect for the Islamic faith. More →

December 1, 2006