Turkish officials have launched investigations into contacts between the Vatican and Fethullah Gulen, the alleged mastermind of last July's coup attempt, after claims that his Hizmet movement sought to stir discontent among the country's Christian minorities.
Turkey's government-controlled media have repeatedly accused Rome of involvement in attempts to undermine President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, citing a brief February 1998 meeting between Gulen, a Turkish preacher and US based former Iman, and Pope John Paul II.
Last autumn, several newspapers branded Gulen a "Trojan horse of the Vatican", and claimed Hizmet, the Islamic and social movement Gulen founded, formed part of a Rome-backed "infiltration plan". Meanwhile, in December, the parliamentary commission's vice-chairman, Selcuk Ozdag, a leader of President Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development party, accused the Vatican of remaining in contact with Gulen.
Besides the Catholic Church - which has seven dioceses and apostolic vicariates in Turkey – investigators have also targeted Protestant communities. Likewise, several American pastors have been arrested and expelled for alleged complicity in the coup plot, including Andrew Craig Brunson, who survived a knife attack in 2011 at Izmir.
A Catholic priest from Antakya, who asked not to be named, told The Tablet that economic hardships in Turkey, most of whose 75 million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims, were now "widespread", adding that deteriorating security had provoked a "growing nervousness among Christian communities".
Hopes for Turkey's accession to the European Union, originally projected for 2015, have been shelved since the coup attempt, which was followed by the arrest or dismissal of over 100,000 people, including a third of the Turkish Army's command structure.
PICTURE: Turkish people cover a tank in a blanket during a protest against the coup in Ankara, Turkey, in July 2016.
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