Multiple Identities: Ethnic/Religious Identity Perceptions of The Antiochian Orthodox Living in Istanbul

There have been numerous significant contributions in the social science literature with regard to non-Muslim minorities in Turkey which questioned the idea of homogenous national identity aimed to be constructed in a geography where various ethnic minorities were based paving the way for important academic studies challenging official history arguments for the first time. However, these studies have treated religious/ethnic communities as homogeneous groups disregarding class- based social differences, power relations, intragroup discriminations and conflicts. A close observation of non-Muslim minority communities whose numbers are decreasing day-by-day will demonstrate how diverse these groups are. They include economic/cultural and gender differences which prevents them acting together most of the time. Compared to other non-Muslim groups, Antiochian Orthodox is a rarely studied community in social sciences. Indeed, there are scarce amount of qualitative studies which deal with this minority group taking their daily lives into consideration. The reason why this article chooses to examine Antiochian Orthodox is that the studies focusing on this community which have migrated to Istanbul from Antioch and thereabouts have remained at micro-level and their existence in urban scale cities such as Istanbul have rarely questioned. Benefitting from the in-depth interviews with Antiochian Orthodox based in Istanbul, this study problematizes how the members of this particular community defines their ethno-religious, minority identities.