| Latin Church in the Middle East | |
|---|---|
 Dioceses of the Latin Church in the Middle East | |
| Countries and regions |  Cyprus |
| Demonym | Latin Catholics, Levantines |
| Languages | Levantine Arabic,Hebrew,Aramaic,Armenian,Circassian,Greek,Kurdish,Ladino,Turkish,Domari |
| Time Zones | UTC+02:00 (EET) (Cyprus) |
| Largest cities | |
TheLatin Church of theCatholic Church has several dispersed populations of members in theMiddle East, notably inTurkey,Cyprus and theLevant (Syria,Lebanon,Palestine andJordan). Latin Catholics employ theLatin liturgical rites, in contrast toEastern Catholics who fall under their respective church'spatriarchs and employ distinctEastern Catholic liturgies, while being infull communion with the worldwide Catholic Church. Latin Catholics in the Middle East are often of European descent, particularly from the medievalCrusader era and later the 20th-centurycolonial period.
Depending on the specific area in question, due to their cultural heritage descending from Catholics who lived under theOttoman Empire, they are sometimes referred to asLevantines,Italo-Levantines [it], orFranco-Levantines (Arabic:شوام;French:Levantins;Italian:Levantini;Greek:Φραγκολεβαντίνοι Frankolevantini;Turkish:Levantenler orTatlısu Frenkleri) afterFrankokratia.
A distinctive era of influence occurred during theCrusades with the establishment of theKingdom of Jerusalem during theMiddle Ages. As with the case of Eastern Catholics and otherChristians in the Middle East, Latin Catholics have both a history and a present ofpersecution.
Levantines were mostly ofItalian (especiallyVenetian andPisan),French, or otherEuro-Mediterranean origin. They have been living in the easternMediterranean coast ofLebanon andSyria since the middleByzantine or theOttoman era and inConstantinople (Istanbul),Smyrna (İzmir) and other parts ofAnatolia (such as the port towns ofAmasra,Sinop,Trabzon,Enez,Çanakkale,Foça,Çeşme,Bodrum,Alanya,Mersin,Iskenderun, etc., where the colonies of Genoese and Venetian merchants existed) in present-dayTurkey.
The majority are either the descendants of traders from themaritime republics ofVenice,Genoa,Pisa,Ancona andRagusa who had colonies in the East Mediterranean coast; or the descendants of the French/Italian Levantines who lived in theCrusader states of the Levant (in present-dayLebanon,Israel,Palestine andSyria), especially in port towns such asBeirut,Tripoli,Tyre,Byblos,Acre,Jaffa,Latakia, etc.; or in major cities near the coast, such asTarsus,Antioch,Jerusalem, etc. Others may be converts toCatholicism, immigrants from Anglo-French colonization, orEastern Christians who had resided there for centuries.
When theUnited Kingdom took over the southern portion ofOttoman Syria in the aftermath of theFirst World War, some of the new rulers adapted the term "Levantine" pejoratively to refer to the inhabitants of mixedArab andEuropean descent inLebanon,Syria andPalestine, and to Europeans (usuallyFrench,Italian orGreek) who had assimilated and adopted local dress and customs.
Today, a small percentage ofLebanon's smallgroup of Latin Catholics are of at least partialFrench/Italian descent.[1][2]
The Catholic community ofCyprus (Latinoi, Λατίνοι) consists one of the three recognized religious minorities of Cyprus, together with theArmenians andMaronites, according to the 1960 constitution.[3]
Circa 2013 about 35,000 Levantines live inTurkey.[4]
The nameItalo-Levantine is specifically applied to people ofItalian (especiallyVenetian orGenoese) origin, but even with someFrench or otherEuro-Mediterranean roots, who have lived inIstanbul,İzmir and other parts ofAnatolia inTurkey. Some of the Italian Levantines may have ancestral origins also in the easternMediterranean coast (the Levant, particularly in present-dayLebanon andIsrael) dating back to the period of theCrusades and theByzantine Empire. A small group came fromCrimea and from the Genoese colonies in theBlack Sea, after theFall of Constantinople in 1453.
The majority of the Levantines in modern Turkey are the descendants of traders/colonists from the Italianmaritime republics of theMediterranean (especiallyGenoa andVenice) andFrance, who obtained special rights and privileges called theCapitulations from the Ottoman sultans in the 16th century.[5]
There are two large communities of Italian Levantines: one in Istanbul and the other in İzmir. At the end of the 19th century there were nearly 6,000 Levantines of Italian roots in İzmir.[6] They came mainly from the nearby Genoese island ofChios in theAegean Sea.[7]
The community had more than 15,000 members duringAtatürk's presidency in the 1920s and 1930s, but today is reduced to only a few hundreds, according to Italian Levantine writerGiovanni Scognamillo.[8]
They continue to live in Istanbul (mostly in the districts ofKaraköy,Beyoğlu andNişantaşı), and İzmir (mostly in the districts ofKarşıyaka,Bornova andBuca.)
The largest Catholic church in Turkey is theChurch of St. Anthony of Padua onİstiklal Avenue in theBeyoğlu (Pera) district of Istanbul, which was constructed between 1906 and 1912 by the Italian Levantine community.
They have been influential in creating and reviving a tradition ofopera.[9] Famous people of the present-day Levantine community in Turkey include Maria Rita Epik, Franco-LevantineCaroline Giraud Koç and Italo-LevantineGiovanni Scognamillo. Most of Turkey's smallCatholic community are Levantines.
Notable people of the Italian Levantine community in Turkey include:
.svg)
