Abstract:

The relations between Turkey and Vatican had started to be spoken more frequentlyafter Pope Francis’s visit to Turkey in 2014. Turkey-Vatican relations which were established formally in 1960 embody an important historical past. Formal relations, which were tried to be established substantially during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamit II,-especially to reduce the impact of France over the Catholics and for many other reasons-, were not established due to many different reasons, each different than the other.In this study, we will try to examine the reasons why the Turkish-Vatican relations that started at high friendship level in the second half of the 19th century, hadn’t been realized at formal level until the second half of the 20th century. Furthermore, we will examine the effective factors over these relations both for the Ottoman and the Republic periods. We will also discuss to what degree the Catholics and the Orthodox in Turkey were influential over these relations. In this sense, main part of our work will be within the frame of first-hand sources and documents obtained from the Turkish Republic State Archives.

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