A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel with several other sociology of religion professors from across North America to Turkey. Our trip was sponsored by the Institute for Interfaith Dialog, a Houston-based institution founded by expatriate Turkish Muslims who want to foster interfaith cooperation and understanding. We spent eight days traveling throughout the country seeing sites of religious significance. In Istanbul, we saw Kariye Museum (Kora Church), one of the best preserved sites of Christian mosaics in the world; the Hagia Sophia, the seat of Byzantium Christianity from the 6th through the 13th centuries; and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (better known as the “Blue Mosque”). North of Izmir (biblical city of Smyrna) we traveled by bus to Ephesus, the site of the ancient Church to which St. Paul wrote his epistle; in Konya, we visited the tomb and museum of the great Sufi mystic, Rumi, and from there it was a three hour bus ride to the Capadoccia region where early Christians dug cities and churches out of the rock to hide from Roman persecutions. All these sites were inspirational for their historical importance as well as their beauty.

  

But by far the most moving site was a two square block area of a small neighborhood in Istanbul where four religious worship sites existed literally side by side: an Armenian Orthodox church, a mosque, a Greek Orthodox church, and a Synagogue. We were too late to get into the Synagogue or churches, but the last of the 5 daily prayers were just finishing in the mosque, and the Imam invited us in to look around. He was dressed in a tweed blazer and turtleneck sweater, and explained that the various Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities had been living all together in that neighborhood for generations. They attended each other’s funerals, weddings, and prayer services. 

  

It was most moving to hear of the interfaith cooperation in this part of a city that is at once so ancient and so modern; it was also poignant to see the physical structures of synagogue, church and mosque literally sharing courtyard walls and in each other’s shadows. While conflict certainly does exist in the Middle East and Asia between various faiths, that is not the whole story. Interfaith cooperation also lives on at the neighborhood level and between Jewish, Christian and Muslim neighbors.