Guns fire, but then they jam

A day of darkness and light in Istanbul

The fact

Sunday, January 28, was supposed to be a beautiful day. The community had gathered to pray, to sing, to praise the Lord God. After a week of work, our desire was to rest in the Lord.

We were gathered to listen to the Word of God. And as the Lord God spoke to the people listening to Him, in the silence of listening, two guns began to speak.

I was at the altar praying into the microphone. I heard a big noise… I thought maybe the electric heater for heating had tipped over, so I didn’t look up, but, after a split second, I heard the second noise, a gunshot. Then I looked and was confronted with the scene that no one would ever want to see. Two guns, firing, seemed to be competing.

I saw the faithful, not on their knees as they usually do when praying, but lying down under the pews, or running for shelter.

A brother from the community pulled me away, toward the sacristy, locking the door, determined to protect me.

I told him, “What are you doing! Maybe someone from the community will want to try to save themselves by coming here!” So I opened the door again-with fear-and, slowly, we looked into the church. There was total silence.

One of the congregation ran to the church door facing the street to close it, but could not.

I went to help him. On my way to the door, passing among the overturned desks and chairs, I asked the people lying on the floor, “Are you all right?” No one would answer me. I thought they were all dead. I felt like a shepherd counting the slain sheep.

I looked out onto the street to see if any of the shooters were still there, but I saw no one.

Murat Cihan Tuncer’s Death

I went back into the church by closing the big door while someone was calling the police and ambulance. I saw that some people were getting up and told them to go to the garden immediately. At that moment a believer was kneeling near Murat Cihan Tuncer’s head. He said to me, “Father, he is dead.”

Murat Cihan was not part of our community; he was not a Christian. I had seen him a few times in church, but he had never asked me anything. I think he liked something about our Christian traditions.

Guns jammed

In our church on Sunday, however, a miracle happened.

God is with us, the Virgin Mary patroness of this church has protected us, despite the sacrifice of our brother Murat.

Two terrorists enter a church with guns, ready to carry out a massacre, and manage to kill only one person? The two guns, in fact, at the same time, after the first terrible shots, both jammed. The probability of one gun jamming exists, but that it happens to both at the same time certainly does not: I am certain that it was an intervention of the Blessed Mary.

Of the community, no one was even touched by the bullets.

Solidarity of our neighbors, the whole of Turkey

The police who were flying over the area and the ambulance arrived very quickly; then the reporters and TVs also arrived. From there, the rest, was seen and known. But what is not known and not seen is that our neighbors, those in the neighborhood of Büyükdere on the Bosphorus, where our little church is located, have been great friends. Their closeness, their solidarity, their tears, their concrete help has been touching.

Shortly thereafter, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was among the first to speak out against the incident, encouraging us, showing the nation’s sympathy as well as interest in catching the perpetrators.

From there on, a number of civil, political and religious authorities-including the mayor of Istanbul, the mayors of various districts, ministers, representatives of ministries, and leaders of other religious denominations-came close, even in person, to express their solidarity with us.

Within a short time the police caught the two who hurt our community.

“Don’t be afraid; keep talking and don’t be silent.”

These days, now that we are slowly returning to normal, I have been reflecting on everything that has happened, to try to make sense of it and also have a glimpse of the future.

I remembered how, many years ago, the two brothers from the Magnificat Community who have been coming since then to help us out, prayed over me one night.

A terrible thing had happened to two Protestant brothers who had started preaching in Istanbul: they had been tortured and killed. I was afraid: more of torture than of death. We shared about this and so we started praying together.

After invoking the Holy Spirit upon me they opened the Word, and the Lord gave a passage from the Acts of the Apostles that said, “One night, in a vision, the Lord said to Paul, ‘Do not be afraid; keep speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will try to harm you: in this city I have a numerous people'”(18:9-10).

I have been thinking about this Word a lot.

Truly it has been fulfilled all these years, and on Sunday, January 28, it again proved true.

The two shooters were unable to touch the Christian community; if they wanted to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims – moreover – they failed, because everyone here, in Büyükdere and beyond, has warmly rallied around us, spontaneously offering help and solidarity.

If evil wanted to stop us, the Lord and His Mother, protected us, and this prompts us to go, with all our hearts, forward to praise God in this land of Turkey!

Father Anton Bulai