Atanas (Athanasios) Mamasis and Corc (George) Kasapoglu, affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul, were elected to the board of the Samatya Aya Analipsis Greek Orthodox Church Foundation in 2011, but the General Directorate of Foundations (VGM), a Turkish government agency responsible for foundations, refused to validate the election unless the clerics were removed, citing their religious roles as incompatible with board membership, the report said.
The priests challenged the decision, arguing that the 2008 Foundations Regulation did not prohibit clergy from serving on foundation boards and filed, through their attorney, an application with the Constitutional Court on October 24, 2019, SCF reported, citing Agos.
On September 18, 2024, the court found that the long-running legal uncertainty deprived the applicants of their right to freedom of association, protected under Article 33 of the Turkish Constitution, according to the ruling published in the Turkish Government Gazette on Friday.
The court awarded each applicant 30,000 Turkish lira ($847) in non-pecuniary damages and ordered that a copy of the decision be sent to the VGM and the Ministry of Justice.