The Galata Greek Primary School Foundation on Oct. 25 submitted an application to the İstanbul Foundations Regional Directorate for the return of the 126-year-old building. The VGM officials said on Tuesday that the return of the property to the foundation will take about two months, as reported by the Anatolia news agency.
The Galata Greek Primary School, which is in the Karaköy district of İstanbul, was confiscated in 1968 and given to the Ministry of Education. The school is inactive because of the declining Greek population in Turkey. The Galata Greek Primary School Foundation is planning to have the building serve as a cultural center.
A decree published in the Official Gazette in September made it possible for property seized from Christian and Jewish religious foundations to be returned to them and, in cases where the state has sold the property to third parties, the religious foundation will be paid the market value of the property by the Ministry of Finance.
There have been applications to the VGM by the non-Muslim foundations for the return of 1,410 immovable properties. The VGM approved 181, disapproved 347 and rejected 893 of those applications.
The law on foundations in 1936 aimed to control non-Muslim foundations by placing them under the guardianship of the VGM. The laws on foundations have been altered a few times, with new amendments following each other; new laws granting some rights, which were then rescinded by other regulations.
Turkey’s population of nearly 75 million, mostly Muslim, includes about 65,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians, 20,000 Jews, 15,000 Assyrians and about 3,500 Greek Orthodox Christians. While Armenian groups have 52 and Jewish groups have 17 foundations, Greeks have 75. Some of the properties seized from those foundations include hospitals, schools and cemeteries.
