Seven houses with a total area of 6,000 hectares, will be returned to Turkey, the Bulgarian Exarchate in Istanbul. This decision was taken by the Turkish government on the basis of a memorandum on the return of expropriated property in 1936, adopted August 28, 2011 the Turkish Parliament, said with reference to the “church bulletin”.
As reported in his interview Hrriyet Daily News Acting Rector Bulgarian church community in Istanbul Lubin turbans, despite the fact that, according to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the Bulgarian Exarchate were not a minority, it is “beyond dispute falls under the definition of a” religious community “. turbans also noted that whereas in the early XX century in Turkey has about 50 thousand Bulgarians, but today there are only 700, because as a result of the unstable political situation, almost all Bulgarians returned home.
According Chalmova, among the first real estate, which will soon be returned to the Bulgarian Exarchate, will monastery courtyard, situated opposite the Church of St. Stephen, the former headquarters of the community in Beikta, Bulgarian cemetery Feriky and 4 buildings in Sisli.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov has expressed the hope that the real estate owned by the Bulgarian Exarchate in the late XIX – early XX centuries., And is still run by the Turkish government, will also be returned to the church in the near future.
“Tangible property value the Bulgarian Exarchate in Istanbul bother us the least – quoted Minister news agency novinite.com. – We are much more important is that it is part of the recent history of the country, as evidenced by the efforts which Bulgaria is applied to achieve religious and political freedom. Headquarters Bulgarian Exarchate decades we associate with the era of national and spiritual revival of our country. ”