Assyrians in Turkey (, Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܛܘܪܩܝܐ) or Turkish Assyrians are an indigenous Semitic-speaking ethnic group and minority of Turkey who are Eastern Aramaic–speaking Christians, with most being members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, or Ancient Church of the East.
They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iraq, Assyrians in Iran and Assyrians in Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora. Assyrians in such European countries as Sweden and Germany would usually be Turoyo-speakers or Western Assyrians, and tend to be originally from Turkey.
The Assyrians were once a large ethnic minority in the Ottoman Empire, living in the Hakkari, Sirnak and Mardin provinces, but, following the Sayfo (1915, also known as the Assyrian genocide), most were murdered or forced to emigrate to join fellow Assyrians in northern Iraq, northeast Syria, and northwest Iran. Most of those who survived the genocide and stayed in Turkey left the country for Western Europe in the 2nd half of the 20th century, due to conflicts between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish Land Forces. As of 2019, an estimated 18,000 of the country's 25,000 Assyrians live in Istanbul. According to Yusuf Çetin, Spiritual Leader of the Syriac Orthodox Community, as of 2023, there are 25,000-30,000 Assyrians in Turkey, including 17,000 to 22,000 in Istanbul, most of them in Yeşilköy, where the new Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church was inaugurated on 8 October 2023.
History
Ottoman era
The Ottoman Empire had an elaborate system of administering the non-Muslim "People of the Book." That is, they made allowances for accepted monotheists with a scriptural tradition and distinguished them from people they defined as pagans. As People of the Book (or dhimmi), Jews, Christians and Mandaeans (in some cases Zoroastrians) received second-class treatment but were tolerated.
In the Ottoman Empire, this religious status became systematized as the "millet" administrative pattern. Each religious minority answered to the government through its chief religious representative. The Christians that the Ottomans conquered gradually but definitively with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 were already divided into many ethnic groups and denominations, usually organized into a hierarchy of bishops headed by a patriarch.
As for the 5 Assyrian Tribes of Hakkari, The Shimun Patriarchate in Qodshanis, who the Tribes worshipped because it was the Assyrian Church of the East's Holy See: was directly subservient to the Sublime Porte, who the see paid the taxes to which they collected from the tribes.
Those who had converted to Protestantism did not want to pay an annual tribute to the older churches through local bishops who then passed some of it up to the Patriarch who then passed some of it to the Porte in the form of taxes. They wanted to deal directly with the Porte, across ethnic lines (even if through a Muslim administrator), in order to have their own voice and not be subjected to the rule of the Patriarchal system. This general Protestant charter was granted in 1850.)
Gaunt has estimated the Assyrian population at between 500,000 and 600,000 just before the outbreak of World War I, significantly higher than reported on Ottoman census figures. Midyat, in Diyarbekir vilayet, was the only town in the Ottoman Empire with an Assyrian majority, although divided between Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, and Protestants. Syriac Orthodox Christians were concentrated in the hilly rural areas around Midyat, known as Tur Abdin, where they populated almost 100 villages and worked in agriculture or crafts. Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin), Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran. Outside of the area of core Syriac settlement, there were also sizable populations in the towns of Diyarbakır, Urfa, Harput, and Adiyaman as well as villages. Unlike the Syriac population of Tur Abdin, many of these Syriacs spoke other languages.