Here I fiercely condemn the evil expressions of the Greek Archbishop İeronimos in his discourse that he delivered on the recent days which targets the religion of Islam and the Muslims and is full of defamations. Such statement means to provoke the community and lead the people to grudge, enmity and violence against our sacred religion of Islam. 

While those who are the representatives of a religion are supposed to produce a discourse that encourages the people to coexist in peace, at the common value of humanity, as being away from hatred and conflicts with the help of their messages of peace, coexisting and tolerance, here I would like to express that it is such an unfortunate and unacceptable statement that does not suit the mission that he carries, and in addition, the Christian World needs to be stand against such ill point of view. 

This kind of discourses that targets to alienate the Muslims feed the racist point of view against the Muslims and turn into attacks against their lives and places of worship.

The most significant duty of the men of religion who are supposed to make efforts in order for the peace and tranquility to dominate all should be to contribute to the culture of coexisting. Such act, discourse and standing that do not alienate the other shall always be valuable in the history of humanity and the common sense of the humanity shall always prevail in the face of such kind of discourses. The way to engrain peace, tranquility, wellbeing, mercy, compassion, justice and virtue to the humanity is not to conflict, but to resurrect the morals of coexisting.

The Civilization of Islam is a great civilization that has always ensured the people who have different religions and different cultures to be able to coexist for centuries and provided the people the right to live in accordance with their faith. On this occasion, here I remind once again that the religion of Islam is a religion of peace that aims to meet the humanity with such divine values such as ethics, mercy, justice, peace and wellbeing.

Prof. Dr. Ali ERBAŞ

The President of Religious Affairs