Istanbul - Christians make up a tiny minority of Turkey's 70-million population, which is more than 99 per cent Muslim, and their numbers are continuing to dwindle. Turkey's Christians, who are mostly Orthodox, are estimated to number some 100,000, but there are no officials statistics on the community.
The largest group is Armenian Orthodox with some 70,000 adherents under Patriarch Mesrob II.
The Greek Orthodox community has a mere 5,000 members and is headed by Bartholomew I.
There are Syrian Orthodox believers in Istanbul and in the south- east of the country.
There are also Catholic and Protestant Christians belonging to the Latin, Chaldean, Armenian and Syrian traditions.
The demise of Anatolia's once large Christian minorities started with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
Almost the entire Armenian population fell victim to mass deportations, leading to accusations of genocide against the Turkish state.
The exodus of the Greeks started when Greek troops marched into Turkey at the end of World War I and unleashed the Turkish War of Independence.
Following an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, as agreed in the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, there were still some 100,000 Greeks living in Istanbul, but many of them soon left the city.
Although Greek and Armenian Christians were recognized as Turkish minorities in the Treaty of Lausanne, churches still to this day do not have autonomous legal status.
For decades, churches have had to fight for their property, and the training of priests has been banned since the 1970s.
Turkey's non-Muslim minorities are hoping for improvements in their situation as a result of Ankara's desire to join the European Union.
