Turkey Orders Historic Greek School in Istanbul to Evacuate Over Earthquake Risk

Turkish authorities person reportedly asked the Greek schoolhouse successful Istanbul to evacuate. Public Domain

Turkey’s Ministry of Education has issued an bid for the evacuation of the historical gathering lodging the Greek Great School of the Nation (Megali Tou Genous Sholi) successful Fener (Fatih, Istanbul) wrong 90 days, citing inadequate earthquake protection.

The 144-year-old building, which hosts an acquisition instauration with an uninterrupted past spanning 571 years, is present deemed unsafe for students and staff. This unexpected bid puts the schoolhouse astatine hazard of a impermanent oregon adjacent imperishable cessation of its operation, according to reports successful the Turkish press.

The authoritative evacuation announcement was sent successful September 2025, demanding that each schoolhouse activities beryllium moved retired of the premises wrong 3 months.

The determination has caused aggravated alarm and astonishment wrong the Greek assemblage of Istanbul. The Great School of the Nation is not lone the oldest continuously operating acquisition constitution successful the metropolis but besides a potent awesome of the humanities beingness and taste practice of the Greek assemblage successful Constantinople.

The School faces an unprecedented crisis, arsenic for the archetypal clip successful its 571-year history, the school has not enrolled a azygous student successful the archetypal people of precocious school. This stark world was brought to airy precocious by the school’s director, Dimitris Zotos, successful an interrogation with ERT.

Founded successful 1454, conscionable 1 twelvemonth aft the autumn of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, the Great School of the Nation is the oldest surviving Greek Orthodox school. Its constitution was a important enactment of taste preservation, serving arsenic a halfway for learning and a beacon of Hellenic individuality for the city’s Greek Orthodox community.

Related: Constantinople Greeks: The Cosmopolitans of Byzantium’s Capital