A recent travel feature published on CNN Travel on September 14, 2024, about the Monastery of Panagia Sumela in Trebizond, has stirred strong reactions and widespread disappointment among Pontic Hellenism. The article, which coincided with the commemoration of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor, is accused of containing historically inaccurate information and promoting Turkish propaganda, as confirmed by CNN’s own disclaimer acknowledging Turkish funding for the piece.
According to the Pan-Pontian Federation of the USA and Canada, the article falsely claims that the Greeks of the Pontus region voluntarily left their homeland and became Crypto-Christians without coercion. In a strongly worded statement, the Federation condemned the inaccuracies, stating:
“CNN, please do your research before reporting state-sanctioned propaganda in a Wikipedia-soaked travel editorial by Joe Yogerst.” The statement further emphasized the sensitive timing of the article’s release, coming just a day after the 102-year anniversary of the burning of Smyrna by Turkish forces in 1922, which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Greek and Armenian Christians.
The Federation’s statement highlights a number of distortions in the CNN article. It points out that Panagia Sumela, one of the most revered Orthodox monasteries, was not founded under Ottoman rule, as implied in the article, but rather by Athenian monks during the reign of Greek Emperor Theodosius I.
Furthermore, it was the Komnenos Dynasty that protected and enriched the monastery, not the Ottoman rulers. The statement also corrected the misleading portrayal of the forced conversion of Greeks into Crypto-Christians, clarifying that the Ottomans, far from allowing freedom of religion, systematically oppressed and persecuted non-Muslims, including the ethnic cleansing of Greeks through death marches and labor battalions.
In particular, the Federation took issue with CNN’s omission of the fact that Orthodox worship services at Panagia Sumela have been repeatedly banned by Turkish authorities in recent years. While the monastery was reopened in 2020, just days after the Turkish President controversially converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, the article fails to mention the long history of religious suppression in Turkey, including the closure of the Halki Theological Seminary in 1971 despite international outcry.
The Federation’s statement also called attention to the inequality in treatment between Christian sites in Turkey and mosques in Greece, highlighting the destruction, conversion, or closure of nearly all Orthodox churches in Turkey. They criticized the use of entry fees imposed on non-Turkish citizens visiting religious sites, which they claim are often ten times higher than those for Turkish citizens.
In conclusion, the Pan-Pontian Federation of the USA and Canada demanded that CNN retract the article, stating, “History should not be subjected to at-will alterations with distortions of the truth, especially within a travel article. Mainstream media and journalists must stop supporting Turkey’s denial of their historic atrocities.”
Read the full announcement below:
CNN, please do your research before reporting state sanctioned propaganda in a Wikipedia-soaked travel editorial by Joe Yogerst. Certainly, it is not a coincidence that CNN published this article on September 14, one day after the 102-year commemoration of the burning of Smyrna where Turkish forces deliberately set fire to the Greek and Armenian quarters killing tens of thousands of Christians.
The editor’s disclaimer, This CNN Travel series is, or was, sponsored by the country it highlights, rings true with half-truths embedded in much of the article. CNN, this misleads your readers to believe the monastery of Panagia Soumela has Turkish origins or considered sanctified by Turkish officials. The Greeks, who had a profoundly positive effect on all cultures of Asia Minor including the Pontos region, inhabited the area since 700 BC while the Ottoman Empire was founded in 1299 AD, 2000 years later. The monastery of Panagia Soumela was founded by Athenian Orthodox monks under the Greek Emperor Theodosius I, not the Ottomans. It was the Komnenos Dynasty that protected and enriched the sacred land, not the Ottomans. The school Phrontisterion of Trapezounda was housed at Panagia Soumela in 1682 the year it was founded by and for the local Greek communities, not the Ottomans.
The Ottomans did not leave the Christians to do their religion. Instead, they forced thousands of Greeks into Crypto-Christianity to avoid persecution. The Ottomans engaged in ethnic cleansing of all non-Ottomans for over 1000 years. The monks of Panagia Soumela and the Pontic Greeks did not choose to relocate from their ancestral homeland, nor did they fear they would be robbed during their journey to Greece. Instead, the Ottomans deceived them and led them to death marches and labor battalions and committed atrocities -murdering over a million Greeks.
On August 15, 2010, the Turkish government allowed the first Orthodox worship service at Panagia Soumela since 1923 to be led by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. This ceremony has NOT repeated every year on this date as services were banned by the current Turkish government in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, and again this year. Furthermore, Panagia Soumela reopened in 2020 just days after the Turkish President reopened the Christian Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople as a mosque. Additionally, the Theological School of Halki, also known as Halki Seminary, which operated under the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church since 1844, was closed by the Turkish government in 1971 despite the outcry of organizations such as UNESCO and other international foundations for the protection of religious freedoms.
While mosques are extended a peaceful existence in Greece today, all Orthodox churches in modern day Turkey have been either shut down, destroyed, turned into mosques, or museums that charge all non-Turkish citizens an entry fee ten times greater than Turkish citizens. All crucifixes have been purposefully covered or removed and iconography destroyed, not scraped off because it was deemed holy as quoted in the fictitious myth. History should not be subjected to at will alterations with distortions of the truth, especially within a travel article. Mainstream media and journalists must stop supporting Turkey’s denial of their historic atrocities who continue the cycle by collecting millions in revenue from the Christian culture they systematically destroyed.
CNN do better. Retract this disrespectful, half-truth article at once.
