On Sunday, January 28, 2024, an act of violence took place at the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, located in the Büyükdere neighborhood of the Sarıyer district in İstanbul, Turkey. The church is officiated by the Friars Minor Conventual.
One person died during the attack on the church. After this event, no Masses were celebrated until February 1st. On Thursday, February 1, 2024, a Mass of Reparation was celebrated. The rite of purification and blessing of the altar and walls of the church was presided over by the Most Reverend Marek SOLCZYŃSKI, Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey. Also present were a number of Catholic bishops and the leaders of other religious faiths, including Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, Alevis, and more. A large crowd of Christians and non-Christians participated as well.
At the end of the Mass, the Pastor, Friar Anton BULAI, addressed those attending. Friar Anton is also the current Custos of the Provincial Custody of the Orient and the Holy Land, and was celebrating Mass when the unexpected event occurred. He thanked everyone for their solidarity, starting with the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN. Friar Anton also gave a brief eye-witness account, which we report below:
“Sunday, January 28, was supposed to be a beautiful day. The parish community had gathered to pray, sing, and praise the Lord God. After a week of work, we desired to rest in the Lord. We gathered to listen to the Word of God. As the Lord God spoke to the people who were silently listening to Him, two guns began to speak.
I was at the altar, praying into the microphone. I heard a big noise. I thought that perhaps the electric heating stove had overturned and so I didn’t look up, but, after a split second, I heard a second noise, a gunshot. Then I looked and was confronted with a scene that no one would ever want to see. Two guns, firing; they seemed to be competing.
I saw the faithful, not on their knees as they usually are when they pray, but lying under pews, or running for shelter.
A parishioner pulled me into the sacristy and locked the door, determined to protect me.
I told him, “What are you doing! Maybe someone else from the community will want to try to save himself by coming in here!” So, I opened the door again – fearfully – and, slowly, we looked into the church. There was total silence.
Another parishioner ran to the door of the church overlooking the street and tried to close it, but he couldn’t.
I went to help him. As I walked to the door, passing among the pews and overturned chairs, I asked the people lying on the ground, ‘Are you all right?’ No one answered me. I thought they were all dead. I felt like a shepherd counting his slain sheep.
I looked out onto the street to see if any of the shooters were still there, but I saw no one.
I went back into the church and closed the large door while someone called the police and an ambulance. I saw that some people were getting up and told them to go to the garden immediately. At that moment a believer was kneeling near the head of Tuncer Murat CIHAN. He said to me, ‘Father, he is dead.’
Murat CIHAN was not a parishioner, he was not a Christian. I had seen him a few times in church, but he had never asked me anything. I think he liked something about our Christian traditions.
All the same, a miracle happened in our church that Sunday.
God was with us and the Virgin Mary, patroness of this church, protected us, despite the sacrifice of our brother Murat.
Two terrorists entered the church with guns, ready to commit a massacre, and managed to kill only one person? In fact, at the same time, right after the first terrible shots, both guns jammed. The chance of one gun jamming is possible, but the chance of two guns jamming at the same time certainly is not. I am certain that this was due to the intervention of the Blessed Mary. No one from the community was even grazed by the bullets.
In a short time, police were flying over the area and the ambulance arrived. Next, journalists and TV stations also arrived. After that, everything else was seen and known. What we didn’t know and see was that our neighbors in the Büyükdere neighborhood on the Bosphorus, where our little church stands, have proven to be great friends. Their sympathy, their solidarity, their tears, and their concrete help was touching.
Soon afterwards, Turkish President Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN was among the first to speak out against the incident. He spoke encouraging us, showing the nation’s solidarity with us and its interest in catching the perpetrators. From then on, a series of civil, political and religious authorities expressed their solidarity with us, some even personally – including the Mayor of Istanbul, the mayors of various districts, ministers, representatives of ministries and the heads of other religious denominations.
In a short time, the police captured the two who attacked our community.
Over the last few days, now that we are slowly returning to normality, I have been reflecting on everything that happened, to try to make sense of it and also to get a glimpse of the future.
I remembered how, many years ago, two brothers from the Magnificat Community, (who have been regularly helping us since then), prayed over me one evening.
At the time, a terrible thing had happened to two Protestant brothers who started preaching in Istanbul. They were tortured and killed. I was more afraid of torture than death. We discussed this and started to pray together.
After invoking the Holy Spirit upon me, they opened up the Word of God and the Lord indicated a passage from the Acts of the Apostles, which read: ‘One night in a vision the Lord said to Paul, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city”‘ (Acts 18:9-10).
I’ve thought a lot about this passage from the Word.
It has really proven true over all these years, and, on Sunday, January 28, it proved true again.
The two shooters could not touch the Christian community. Moreover, if they wanted to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims they failed, because everyone here, in Büyükdere and beyond, has warmly rallied around us, and spontaneously offered help and solidarity.
If evil was trying to stop us, the Lord and His Mother protected us, and this encourages us to go forward, wholeheartedly, to praise God in this land of Turkey!”
Friar Anton BULAI
