‘Of the Relics that We Estimated to Have No Worth’ (Bizce Hiçbir Kıymeti Olmadığı Anlaşılan Eşyanın): Disputes over a Church Property in the Early Republican Period, 1922-1945

Abstract

The end of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Kemalist nation-state were political changes that not only affected the lives of millions of individuals, but also heralded a total demographic and physical reconstitution and transformation of the cities and towns in Asia Minor. The port city of Smyrna/Izmir was undoubtedly one of the Ottoman cities that was devastated by this irrevocable physical, political, and social change. This study attempts to shed light on the history of a church building whose congregation had been compelled to migrate to Greece in September 1922, in the early Republican period. Agios Ioannis o Theologos (Saint John the Theologian), one of the complete churches located in the Upper Neighbourhood, was sequestered by the Commission of the Abandoned Properties (Emvâl-i Metruke Komisyonu) immediately after the Great Fire of 1922. This paper situates the Church of Agios Ioannis Theologos at the nexus of the Abandoned Properties measures and re-territorialisation in the early Republican period. Firstly, a decision was made to destroy the bell tower of the church and convert the remaining building into a school at the end of a lengthy series of correspondence between the ministries and the municipality in 1926. Secondly, its relics, church furniture, and icons were forgotten until the late 1930s. Finally, following two cabinet decisions and lengthy bureaucratic procedures, these relics were transported to Athens in 1945. This paper argues that various institutions of the Republic adopted different strategies to deal with the properties of Ottoman Christian communities after the population exchange in 1923, though the state retained its pragmatic approach towards these remaining properties.