How urban planning is used to undermine Christian institutions in Turkey

Authorities are using zoning laws and urban planning regulations to prevent construction of Christian institutions, according to a new report documenting restrictions across multiple cities.

Urban planning has become a primary tool for restricting Christian institutions in Turkey, with authorities using zoning regulations, building codes, and administrative procedures to prevent church construction and limit religious communities, according to a new report.

The 88-page study, released by the Ayhan Şahenk Foundation in December 2024, documents how Turkish municipalities employ urban development plans to systematically disadvantage Christian institutions across the country. The report examines cases in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and other major cities where zoning decisions have blocked or severely restricted Christian presence.

“Urban planning is being weaponized as a form of soft persecution,” said Laki Vingas, a minority rights advocate and former representative of Greek Orthodox foundations in Turkey, who contributed to the report. “What you cannot achieve through direct prohibition, you achieve through procedural obstruction.”

The report identifies several mechanisms through which planning regulations disadvantage Christian communities. In Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, home to the historic Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, repeated zoning changes have prevented Armenian Catholic and Greek Orthodox institutions from carrying out basic maintenance and expansion projects. Properties owned by minority foundations for decades have been redesignated in ways that make their current religious use technically nonconforming with new land-use categories.

In one documented case, the Armenian Catholic Church of the Assumption in Samatya, Istanbul, sought permission for structural repairs in 2018. The application was denied on grounds that the 1902 building did not conform to the current zoning designation for the area, despite the church having occupied the site for more than a century. Municipal authorities suggested the community could reapply if it changed the building’s use to a nonreligious function.

Similar patterns emerge in Ankara, where Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Orthodox communities have faced repeated denials of building permits. Applications submitted by the Chaldean Catholic community in Ankara’s Çankaya district in 2015, 2017, and 2019 were all rejected on technical grounds related to building height restrictions, setback requirements, and parking ratios that the report argues are selectively enforced against religious minorities.

“The regulations themselves may appear neutral,” said Turgut Tatlılıoğlu, an urban planning expert who co-authored the study. “But when you examine their application, you find a clear pattern of discrimination. Churches are held to standards that are not applied to mosques or commercial buildings in the same zones.”

The report notes that while Turkish law technically allows for construction of Christian places of worship, no new church building has received final approval and been completed in Turkey since the 1960s. Protestant communities, which have grown significantly in Turkey over the past two decades, face particular difficulties as they lack historical buildings and foundation status.

Istanbul’s Asian side provides another case study. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s 2023 revision of the Kadıköy district plan redesignated several plots owned by Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic foundations. Properties that had been zoned for “religious and educational use” were changed to “residential” or “commercial” designations, effectively preventing their use for church purposes and potentially allowing for future expropriation if the communities cannot demonstrate conforming use.

The Ayhan Şahenk Foundation report also documents administrative delays that function as de facto denials. The Syriac Orthodox community in Mardin submitted applications for a new church in 2012. After 12 years of administrative review, multiple requests for additional documentation, and several revisions to address technical objections, the application remains pending with no indication of when or if it will be resolved.

Vingas pointed to the contrast with mosque construction, where applications typically receive approval within months and benefit from streamlined procedures. “The state actively facilitates mosque construction through the Diyanet,” he said, referring to Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs. “Christian communities face the opposite experience — a bureaucratic maze designed to exhaust their resources and patience.”

The report makes several recommendations, including establishing transparent and equal procedures for all religious communities, ending the selective application of planning regulations, and creating an independent review mechanism for cases where religious institutions face zoning restrictions.

Turkey’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and the country is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the report argues that administrative practices systematically undermine these protections through mechanisms that are difficult to challenge legally because they appear on the surface to be neutral planning decisions.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has maintained its headquarters in Istanbul for 1,700 years, has repeatedly raised concerns about such restrictions with Turkish authorities and international organizations. Despite its global importance to Orthodox Christianity, the patriarchate faces significant limitations on its property rights and ability to train clergy within Turkey.

Christian communities in Turkey have declined dramatically over the past century. Where Christians constituted approximately 20% of the Ottoman Empire’s Anatolian population in 1914, they now represent less than 0.2% of Turkey’s 85 million people. The report suggests that discriminatory planning practices contribute to this ongoing decline by making it increasingly difficult for communities to maintain their institutional presence.

Representatives from Turkey’s Interior Ministry and the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality did not respond to requests for comment on the report’s findings.