ICC Note: Turkish school management has sent out emails to Christians teachers in Istanbul banning carol singing and lessons on Christmas. This is Turkey’s latest move in monitoring the information available to its citizens and the freedom of speech especially speech surrounding Christian matters. While many deny that this is a Christmas ban, 35 teachers have been clearly stifled concerning the holiday.

12/20/2016 Turkey (WWM): “No more Christmas celebration and/or lessons on Christmas including carol singing is permitted, effective immediately”. An email on 13 December sent to about 35 German-funded teachers at Istanbul Erkek Lisesi (also known as Istanbul High School) saying that the National Ministry of Education had communicated that no more of these activities should take place.

That Turkey is the homeland of the real ‘Santa Claus’ is an irony largely lost on most media: St Nicholas, who secretly left gifts for poor children, was in fact Bishop Nicholas who lived in c.300 AD in Demre (formerly known as Myra), in Lycia, Southern Turkey.

Church history teaches that Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea, close to Istanbul, where 300 early Church Fathers agreed on their core beliefs as followers of Jesus Christ. It’s the teaching of these beliefs that now appears to be being challenged.

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The directive from the National Ministry of Education particularly affected the German teachers who’d been working hard over two or three months to prepare the content and choir for a Christmas carol concert to be performed at the High School itself. This did take place last Friday as planned, with a revised programme, for which the choir director must only have had a couple of days to amend all the music and carols.

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