The '' BBC '' reported in 2014 that Turkey 's Christian population had declined from 20 % to 0.2 % since 1914 . The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ( USCIRF ) designated Turkey a " Country of Particular Concern " for religious freedom , noting “ systematic limitations on the freedom of religion or belief ” with respect to access to places of worship , religious education and right to train clergy . The report does note some areas of improvement such as better protection of the property rights of non-Muslims . In the pre-war period American missionaries had been actively involved in the Ottoman education system . Many of the schools were closed down and suffered under stringent regulations and burdensome taxes during the country 's secularization . Historically , these schools had worked with the Ottoman Empire 's Christian communities , and were regarded with suspicion by the fledgling state . One contemporary account noted that " If American opinion has been uninformed , misinformed and prejudiced , the missionaries are largely to blame . Interpreting history in terms of the advance of Christianity , they have given an inadequate , distorted , and occasionally grotesque picture of Moslems and Islam . " A number of high-profile incidents targeting non-Muslims , including Christians , have occurred since the modern Turkish Republic was founded in 1923 . During the Istanbul pogrom of 1955 , non-Muslims ( pejoratively called '' gayrimüslim '' ) were attacked , harassed and killed by Turkish Muslims . In 2007 , one German Protestant and two Turkish converts were tortured to death in Malatya by five men in the Zirve Publishing House murders . Turkish media called these killings the " missionary massacres " . In 2001 , Turkey 's National Security Council reported that it considers Protestant missionaries the third largest threat to Turkey 's national security , surpassed only by Islamic fundamentalism and the Kurdish separatist organization PKK . A 2004 report by the Turkish Armed Forces ( TAF ) similarly recommended implementing new laws to curb missionary activity . According to the Turkish Evangelical Churches movement , Turkish Protestant churches had only 3,000 members in 2009 — about half of these were converts from Islam , while the others were Armenian and Syriac Christians . Since Turkish nationality was often perceived exclusively as a Muslim identity after the Balkan Wars , the influence of Protestant missionaries on Turkey 's Alevi population has been a concern since the era of Committee of Union and Progress rule . In 2016 the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey released a report warning of an increase in anti-Christian hate speech
Istanbul pogrom
Istanbul pogrom
Christianity in Turkey