There are no plans to return the Byzantine St Paul’s Church in Tarsus to the Roman Catholic Church, Turkish government officials said last week.On May 10, the Turkish Daily News reported that officials from the town of Tarsus said they were unaware of any request made by Cologne's Archbishop Cardinal Joachim Meisner on behalf of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference to return the Church of St Paul to ecclesiastical control.
Seized by the Turkish government in the 1920s following the expulsion of Christians from Asia Minor, the church was used as an army warehouse for several decades and in recent years was served as a municipal museum.
In a March letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Cardinal Meisner urged the Turkish government return the church as a sign of pan-European cooperation, noting such a gesture of goodwill from the Turks would be reciprocated by Catholic support for mosque building in Germany.
However, Mehmet Ali Gürbüz, an aide to the mayor of Tarsus told Turkish newspapers the city was not aware of any plans to de-nationalize the property. He also disputed Catholic claims that Christians were persecuted in Turkey, noting that St Paul’s was a “museum in name only."
“Every Christian is allowed to worship freely,” he argued, adding that visiting clergy were permitted to conduct services at the historic church.
Beginning with the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the Feast Day of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Roman Catholic Church will celebrate the “Pauline year” in honour of the Apostle’s 2000th birthday.
Cardinal Walter Kasper will lead worship services at the Tarsus Church on the Apostle’s feast day and pilgrims are expected to visit the church over the course of the year.
Gürbüz told reporters the town was looking forward to the influx of Christian tourists and had set up a website to promote the venue, however, it was not aware of plans to return the property.
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