He is an unassuming Pastor, came in 1993 from the US in Turkey to return to Missio. But suddenly, Andrew Brunson is the player character, in a diplomatic crisis. A Portrait.
It is a small community, only a few dozen members meet regularly in a nondescript room in a tenement house in the coastal town of Izmir in Western Turkey. In their midst: the American Pastor Andrew Brunson. He plays the guitar, sings, and prays with them. The pictures show him on the website of the municipality.
So it looked in the Izmir Dirilis-resurrection Church, before Brunson was arrested. Before political threats inflamed in his Person. Before, the partners in NATO, USA and Turkey plunged into a full-blown crisis – with him as the trigger.
From the “Bible Belt” in Turkey
Such a development has the today of 50-year-old Brunson probably did not imagine when he joined the company in 1993 with his wife Norine in Turkey. From the small town of Black Mountain, North Carolina – located in the neighborhood of the so-called “Bible Belt”, where the Christian Faith is an integral part of the culture and the people like to vote Republican – they settled in Turkey. The couple is a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), a small group in the center of the Presbyterian liberal-conservative spectrum files. The official Motto of the reformed Church reads: “In the Main: unit. In The Non-Essential: Freedom. In all things: charity”.
Andrew Brunson in his native Turkey city of Izmir
Like other Evangelical believers had also committed Brunson of the Mission. This task he wanted to put in the Turkey – after all, a country in which 99 percent of the people are of the Muslim faith. The missionary work is banned in Turkey since 2003, like to seen, but it is also. In 2007, a German missionary and two Turkish converts, were murdered. Brunson of his work, not to distract, in 2010, he even founded the Church of the resurrection in Izmir.
Instead of a new visa: prison
Six years later, everything changed. Actually, he wanted to extend his visa, but in the case of a supposed Routine appointment at 7. October 2016, he will be detained – not three months after the failed coup attempt, following which, thousands of employees of the public service, the judiciary, the police and the military arrested, dismissed or suspended. Also Brunson’s wife is detained for some days, permitted to leave the prison. After 63 days, the charge is fixed: Brunson is to be a member of an armed terrorist organization. In addition, he is said to have spies in the coup planning to be involved, and the Kurdish PKK.
Allegations that US politicians and international observers to far-fetched. Although Brunson is, as he says himself, and in the Kurdish areas in the Southeast of the Turkey traveled. However, he is in charge of refugees from Syria. There is accordingly no evidence that he has instigated conspiracies against the Turkish government, as experts agree. Also, Brunson is constantly asserting his innocence. He also stressed the policy had always want his Church to keep away.
Apparently for good reason, because it doesn’t take long until a diplomatic crisis in his Person ignites.
Trump is said to have spoken with Erdogan (on the left) on the release of Brunson 2017 – unsuccessfully
As the U.S. government in 2017, calls for the release Brunson, responds to Erdogan with an offer. He has the US-American Pastor as a possible replacement object in view – and against the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen, who has lived since the 1990s in exile in the United States. Erdogan makes Gülen for the coup attempt in 2016, responsible, and want to see him back in Turkey. “Give us back, then we give back you it,” said Erdogan in the past year about the two priests in the direction of the USA.
Religious voters are important for Trump
The offer ignored Trump and his government so far, the sabre-rattling between Turkey and the United States, however, went further – after all, the voters are in the religious States for the Republicans in the congressional elections in the autumn of enormous importance. You should see that the Republican government is committed to the Pastor. For Vice-President Mike Pence, the case also has a personal Dimension: He is himself a creditor of the evangelicals, and represents a very conservative Faith. He wants to make sure that Brunson comes free.
Brunson is allowed to leave at the end of July the prison. Since then, he sits in house arrest.
In spite of this political and religious Motivation: For the imprisoned Pastor, the situation improved, however, hardly any – on the contrary. His physical condition deteriorated, according to his daughter he has decreased in the arrest of 25 kilograms. In a letter to his parish, published in July, he wrote that he felt “weak”.
At the end of July, Brunson was allowed to leave the prison, at least for the time being, but only up to 12. October. His next hearing will take place. In the meantime, he sits in house arrest – and can watch from there, as believers around the world pray for him. When he can be back with his community together, however, knows none.