The Question Of The Alevi Minority In Turkey And Their Religious Identity – Analysis

Alevi women partaking in Semah ritual in Turkey. 

Photo Credit: SERDAR AYDIN 1, Wikipedia Commons


March 9, 2026 
By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Introduction

Despite occasional suggestions from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—including floated referendums on EU talks in the mid-2010s—the path to Turkish EU membership remains blocked, fueling debates over whether accession would strengthen European security against radicalism or exacerbate cultural and historical divides.

A current EU political concern is reflected in many controversial issues, and one of those the most important is about whether or not to accept Turkey as a full member state (being a candidate state since 1999). Turkey is, on one hand, governed as a secular democracy by moderate Islamic political leaders, seeking to play the role of a bridge between the Middle East and Europe. However, Turkey is, on the other hand, an almost 100% Muslim country with a rising tide of Islamic radicalism (especially since the 2023 Israeli aggression on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Gazans), surrounded by neighbors with a similar problem.

There are two fundamental arguments by all of those who are opposing Turkish admission to the EU: 1) Muslim Turkish citizens (70 million) will never be properly integrated into the European environment that is predominantly Christian; and 2) In the case of Turkish accession, historical clashes between the (Ottoman) Turks and European Christians are going to be revived. Here we will refer only to one statement against Turkish accession: it “would mean the end of Europe” (former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) – a statement which clearly reflects the opinion by 80% of Europeans polled in 2009 that Turkey’s admission to the EU would not be a good thing. At the same time, there are only 32% of Turkish citizens who had a favorable opinion of the EU, and, therefore, the admission process, for which formal and strict negotiations began already in 2005, is very likely to be finally abortive.

Islamic fundamentalism and Turkey’s admission to the EU

The question of Turkish admission to the EU is, by the majority of Europeans, seen through the glass of Islamic fundamentalism as one of the most serious challenges to European stability and, above all, identity that is primarily based on Christian values and tradition. Islamic fundamentalism is understood as an attempt to undermine existing state practices for the very reason that militant Muslims (like ISIS/ISIL/DAESH) are fighting to re-establish the medieval Islamic Caliphate and the establishment of theocratic authority over the global Islamic community – the Umma. Nevertheless, religious fundamentalism first came to the attention of the Western part of the international community in 1979 when a pro-American absolute monarchy was replaced with a Shia (Shiia) Muslim anti-American semi-theocracy in Iran. In other words, Iranian Shia Muslim clerics, who were all the time the spiritual leaders of the Iranians, became their political leaders too. The Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979 prompted possibilities of similar uprisings in other Muslim societies, followed by pre-emptive actions against them by other governments.

What can be the most dangerous scenario for Turkey from the European perspective if the accession negotiations fail is, probably, Turkish turn towards the Muslim world, followed by rising influence of Islamic fundamentalism, which can be properly controlled by the EU if Turkey were to become a member state of the club? That is, probably, the most important “security” factor to note regarding the EU-Turkish relations and accession negotiations. Namely, following the 9/11 terror attacks (on Washington and New York), it was becoming more and more clear that it was better to have (Islamic) Turkey inside the EU rather than as a part of an anti-Western bloc of Muslim states.

In general, for Western governments and especially for the US and Israeli administrations, Shia Muslims became seen after the 1979 Iranian Islamic (Shia) revolution as the most potential Islamic fundamentalists and the religious terrorists. Therefore, the oppression of Shia minorities by the Sunni majorities in several Muslim countries is deliberately not recorded and criticized by Western governments. The case of the Alevi people in Turkey is one of the best examples of such a policy. However, at the same time, the EU administration is paying full attention to the Kurdish question in Turkey, even requiring the recognition of the Kurds by the Turkish government as an ethnocultural minority (as different from the ethnic Turks). Why are the Alevi people discriminated against in this respect by the EU’s minority policy in Turkey? The answer is because the Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but Alevis are considered a Turkish faction of the (militant) Shia Muslim community within the Islamic world.

In the next paragraphs, I would like to shed more light on the question of who the Alevi people are and what Alevism is as a religious identity, taking into account the fact that religion, undoubtedly, has become increasingly important in both the studies and practice of international relations and global politics. We also have to keep in mind that religious identity was predominant in comparison to national or ethnic identities for several centuries, being the crucial cause of political conflicts in many cases.

What is Alevism?

The Alevi people are those Muslims who believe in Alevism, that is, in fact, a sect or form of Islam. Especially in Turkey, Alevism is a second common sect of Islam. The number of Alevi people is between 10 and 15 million. The name of the sect comes from the term Alevi, which means “the follower of Ali”. Some experts in Islamic studies claim that Alevism is a branch of Shi’ism (Shia Islam), but, as a matter of fact, the Alevi Umma is not homogeneous, and Alevism cannot be understood without another Islamic sect – Bektashism. Nevertheless, Alevi culture produced many poets and folk songs, alongside the fact that Alevi people are experiencing many everyday life problems in living according to their beliefs in Islam.

The Alevis (Turkish: Aleviler or Alevilik; Kurdish: Elewî) are a religious, sub-ethnic, and cultural community in Turkey representing at the same time the biggest sect of Islam in Turkey. Alevism is a way of Islamic mysticism or Sufism that believes in one God by accepting Muhammad as a Prophet, and the Holy Qur’ān. Alevi people love Ehlibeyt – the family of Prophet Muhammad-, unifying prayer and supplication, prayer in their language, to prefer a free person instead of Umma (Muslim community), to prefer to love God instead of God’s fear, to overcome Sharia reaching to the real world, believing in the Holy Qur’ān’s genuine instead of shave. Alevism has found its cure in human love; they believe that people are immortal because a person is manifested by God. Women and men are praying together, in their language, with their music that is played via bağlama, with semah. Alevism is an entirety of beliefs that depends on Islam’s rules, which are based on the Holy Qur’ān, according to Muhammad’s commands; by interpreting Islam with a universal dimension, it opens new doors to the earth. The Alevi system of belief is Islamic with a triplet composed of Allah, Muhammad, and Ali.

There are many strong arguments about the relationship between Alevism and Shi’ism. Some researchers say that Alevism is a form of Shi’ism, but some of them say that Alevism is sectarian. We have to keep in mind that Shi’ism is the second most common type of Islam in the world after Sunnism. This is a branch of Islam which is called the Party of Ali for the reason that it recognizes Ali’s claim to succeed his cousin and father-in-law, the Prophet Muhammad, as the spiritual leader of Islam during the first civil war in the Islamic world (656−661). In most of the Islamic countries, the Sunnis are in the majority, but the Shi’ites comprise some 80 million believers, or, in other words, around 13% out of all the world’s Muslims. The Shi’ites are predominant in three countries: Iran, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. However, Alevism cannot be understood as identical to Sufism, which is the mystical aspect of Islam that arose as a reaction to strict religious orthodoxy. Sufis seek personal union with God, and their Christian Orthodox counterparts in the Middle Ages were the Bogumils.

Undoubtedly, Alevism has some similar issues with Shi’ism; at the same time, there are a lot of differences concerning the general practice of Islam. However, in some Western literature, Alevism is presented as a branch of Shi’ism, or more specifically, as a Turk or Ottoman way of Shi’ism.

Split within Muslims

We have to keep in mind that in this place, the Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries was accompanied by political conflicts which followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and the question of who is entitled to succeed him is still splitting up the Muslim world today. In other words, when the Prophet died, a caliph (successor) was chosen to rule all Muslims. However, as the caliph lacked prophetic authority, he enjoyed secular power but not authority in religious doctrine. The first caliph was Abu Bakr, who is considered, together with his three successors, as the “rightly guided” (or orthodox) caliphs. They ruled according to the Quran and the practices of the Prophet, but, thereafter, Islam became split into two antagonistic branches: Sunni and Shia.

The Sunni-Shia division basically started when Ali ibn Abi Talib (599−661), Muhammad’s son-in-law and heir, assumed the Caliphate after the murder of his predecessor, Uthman (574−656). The civil war ended with the defeat of Ali and the victory of Uthman’s cousin and governor of Damascus, Mu’awiya Umayyad (602−680), after the Battle of Suffin. However, those Muslims (like the Alevi people, for instance) who claimed that Ali was the rightful caliph took the name of Shiat Ali – the “Partisans of Ali”. They believe that Ali was the last legitimate caliph and, therefore, the Caliphate should pass down only to those who are direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter, Fatima, and Ali, her husband. Ali’s son, Hussein (626−680), claimed the Caliphate, but the Umayyads killed him together with his followers at the Battle of Karbala in 680. This city, today in contemporary Iraq, is the holiest of all sites for Shia Muslims (Shi’ism). Even though the Prophet Muhammad’s family line ended in 873, the Shia Muslims believe that the last descendant did not die, as he is rather “hidden” and will return. Those basic Shia interpretations of the history of Islam are followed by the Alevi people, and, therefore, many researchers are simply considering Alevism as a faction of Shi’ism.

The dominant branch of Islam is Sunni. The Sunni Muslims, unlike their Shia opponents, are not demanding that the caliph has to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. They are also accepting the Arabic tribal customs in the government. According to their point of view, political leadership is in the hands of the Muslim community as such. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, the religious and political power in Islam was never again united into a political community after the death of the fourth caliph.

Alevism in Islam

Alevi people believe in one God, Allah, and, therefore, Alevism, as a form of Islam, is a monotheistic religion. Like all other Muslims, the Alevis understand that God is in everything around them in nature. It is important to notice that there are those Alevis who believe in good and bad spirits (and kind of angels), and, therefore, they often practice superstition to benefit from good ones and to avoid harm from bad ones. For that reason, for many Muslims, Alevism is not a real Islam as it is more a form of paganism imbued with Christianity. However, a majority of Alevis do not believe in these supernatural beings, saying that it is an expression of Satanism.

The essence of Alevism is in the fact that Alevis believe that according to the original text of the Quran, Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, was to be the Prophet’s successor as God’s vice-regent on earth or caliph. However, they claim that the parts of the original Quran related to Ali were taken out by his rivals. According to Alevis, the Quran, as a fundamental holy book for all Muslims, should be interpreted esoterically. For them, there are much deeper spiritual truths in the Quran than the strict rules and regulations that appear on the surface. However, most Alevi writers will quote individual Quranic verses as an appeal for authority to support their view on a given topic or to justify a certain Alevi religious tradition. The Alevis generally promote the reading of the Quran in the Turkish language rather than in Arabic, stressing that it is of fundamental importance for a person to understand exactly what he or she is reading, which is not possible if the Quran is read in Arabic. However, many Alevis do not read the Quran or other holy books, nor base their daily beliefs and practices on them, as they consider these ancient books to be irrelevant today.

The Alevis are reading three different books. If, according to their opinion, there is no proper information in the Quran, as the Sunnis corrupted the authentic words of Muhammad, it is necessary to reveal the original Prophet’s messages by alternative readings. Therefore, Alevi believers are looking to (1) the Nahjul Balagha, the traditions and sayings of Ali; (2) the Buyruks, the collections of doctrine and practices of several of the 12 imams, especially Cafer; and (3) the Vilayetnameler or the Menakıbnameler, books that describe events in the lives of great Alevis such as Haji Bektash. Except for these basic books, there are some special sources to participate in the creation of Alevi theology, like poet-musicians Yunus Emre (13−14th century), Kaygusuz Abdal (15th century), and Pir Sultan Abdal (16th century).

The foundation of Alevism is in the love of the Prophet and Ehlibeyt. Twelve Imams are godlike, glorified by the Alevis. Waiting for the last Imam’s (Muslim religious leader) reappearance, the Shia Muslims established a special council composed of 12 religious scholars (Ulema) that elect a supreme Imam. For instance, Ayatollah (“Holy Man”) Ruhollah Khomeini (1900−1989) enjoyed that status in Iran. Most Alevis believe that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, grew up in secret to be saved from those who wanted to exterminate the family of Ali. Many Alevis believe Mehdi is still alive and/or that he will come back to earth one day. According to Alevis, Ali was Muhammad’s intended successor, and therefore the first caliph, but competitors stole this right from him. Muhammed intended for the leadership of all Muslims to perpetually stem from his family line (Ehli Beyt) by beginning with Ali, Fatima, and their two sons, Hasan and Hüseyin. Ali, Hasan, and Hüseyin are considered the first three Imams, and the other nine of the 12 Imams came from Hüseyin’s line. Just to remind ourselves, the names and approximate dates of the birth and death of the 12 Imams are:

İmam Ali (599-661)
İmam Hasan (624-670)
İmam Hüseyin (625-680)
İmam Zeynel Abidin (659-713)
İmam Muhammed Bakır (676-734)
İmam Cafer-i Sadık (699-766)
İmam Musa Kâzım (745-799)
İmam Ali Rıza (765-818)
İmam Muhammed Taki (810-835)
İmam Ali Naki (827-868)
İmam Hasan Askeri (846-874)
İmam Muhammed Mehdi (869-941).


For the Alevis, to be a really good person is an inalienable part of their life philosophy. It is important to notice that the Alevis are not turned to the Black Stone (Kaaba), which is in Mecca in the Sunni Saudi Arabia, and, as it is known, the Muslim community’s member is supposed to visit it for Hajj at least once in their lives. Alevis’ first fasting is not in Ramadan, it is in Muharram, and it takes 12 days, not 30 days. The second fast for them is after the Feast of Sacrifice for 20 days, and another one is the Hizir fast. In Islam, there is a rule that if a person has enough money, he/she should give a specific amount to a poor person, but the Alevis prefer to donate money to Alevi organizations, not to individuals. As they don’t go to Mecca for Hajj, they visit some mausoleums, like that of Haji Bektaş (in Kırşehir), Abdal Musa (in Tekke Village, Elmalı, Antalya), Şahkulu Sultan (in Merdivenköy, İstanbul), Karacaahmet Sultan (in Üsküdar, İstanbul), or Seyit Gazi (in Eskişehir).

Bektashism

Haji Bektash (Bektaş) Wali was a Turkmen who was born in Iran. After graduating, he moved to Anatolia. He educated a lot of students, and he and his students served a lot of religious, economic, social, and martial services in Ahi Teşkilatı. Haji Bektash started to be popular among the Ottoman elite military detachment, the Janissaries. Nevertheless, he was not of the Alevi origin, but he adopted the rules of the Alevi believers into his personal life. That sect, or a form of Islam, was founded in the name of Haji Bektash Wali, whose members depend on the love of Ali and the twelve imams. Bektashism was popular in Anatolia and the Balkans (especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania), and it is still alive today.

Over the course of time, Bektashism was improved by taking some features of the old beliefs of Anatolia and Turkish culture. However, Bektashism is the most important part of Alevism, as many rules of Bektashism are incorporated into Alevism. For the Alevi believers, the mausoleum of Haji Bektash Wali in Nevşehir in Anatolia is an important point of the pilgrimage. Finally, in Turkey, Bektashism and Alevism, in fact, cannot be treated as different concepts of Islamic theology.

Problems and difficulties of Alevis in Ottoman history and Turkey

When the Ottoman state was established at the end of the 13th century and at the beginning of the 14th century, it did not have sectarian frictions within Islam. At that time, Alevis occupied a lot of chairs in state institutions. The Janissaries (originally the Sultan’s bodyguard) were members of Bektashism, which means that even the Sultan tolerated in full such a way of the interpretation of the Quran and the early history of Islam. However, as the Ottoman state was involved in the process of imperialistic transformation by annexing surrounding provinces and states, Sunnism was getting more and more important because the Sunni Muslims were becoming a clear majority of the Ottoman Sultanate and, therefore, Sunnism was much more useful for the state administration and the system of governing. The Ottoman state became involved in the chain of conflicts with the Safavid Empire (Persia, today Iran, 1502−1722) – a country with a clear majority of those Muslims who expressed Shi’ism that is a form of Islam very similar to Alevism. The Alevi group, who complained about being more Sunni in the Ottoman Sultanate, became sympathizing Safavid Shah İsmail I (1501−1524) and his state, as it was based on Alevism. The animosity between the Ottoman Alevis and Ottoman authorities became more obvious in 1514 when the Ottoman Sultan Selim I (1512−1520) executed some 40.000 Alevis together with the Kurdish people while going to have a decisive Battle of Chaldiran (August 23rd) in Iran against Shah Ismail I. Till the end of the Ottoman Sultanate in 1923, Alevis have been oppressed by the authorities as the sectarian believers who were not fitting to the official Sunni theology of Islam.

After the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, Alevis were glad in the first years of the new Republic of Turkey, which declaratively proclaimed a segregation of the religion from the state, which practically meant that there was no official state religion in the country. The Alevi population of Turkey supported most of the reforms with great hope that their social status would be improved. However, after the first years of the new state, they started to experience some difficulties as, de facto, a religious minority. The 1960s were very important for Turkish society for at least three reasons: (1) The immigration had started from the rural area to the urban area following a new process of industrialization; (2) The immigration abroad, mostly to West Germany, according to the German-Turkish so-called Gastarbeiter Agreement; and (3) A further democratization of political life. As a consequence, in 1966, Alevis established their own political party – Birlik Partisi (Unity Party). In 1969, Alevism, as a minority group, sent eight members to the Parliament according to the results of the parliamentary elections. However, in 1973, the party had sent just one member to the Parliament, and finally, in 1977, the party had lost its efficiency. In 1978, in Maraş, and in 1980, in Çorum, hundreds of Alevi Muslims were killed as a consequence of the conflict with the majority Sunni population, but the most notorious Alevi massacre happened in 1993 on July 2nd in Sivas, when 35 Alevi intellectuals were killed in Madimak Hotel by a group of religious fundamentalists.

Undoubtedly, the Alevi believers still face many problems in Turkey today in connection with freedom of religious expression and the recognition as a separate cultural group. For example, the religious curriculum does not have any information about Alevism, but rather only about Sunnism, which means that Alevism is not studied on a regular basis in Turkey. Alevism is deeply ignored by Turkey’s administration, for instance, by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (est. 1924), which is an institution dealing with the religious questions and problems, but in practice, it is working according to the rules of Sunni Islam. However, on the other hand, there are some improvements in Alevi cultural life, as, for instance, many foundations and other civic public institutions are opened to support it. Nevertheless, Alevis, like Kurds, are not recognized as a separate ethnocultural or religious group in Turkey due to the Turkish understanding of a nation (millet) that is inherited from the Ottoman Sultanate, according to which all Muslims in Turkey are treated as ethnolinguistic Turks. The situation can be changed as Turkey is seeking the EU’s membership and, therefore, certain EU requirements have to be accepted, among others, and granting minority rights for Alevis and Kurds.

Conclusions

Alevism is a sect of Islam, and it shows many common points with Shi’ism. However, we can not say that it is a part of Shi’ism as a whole. Alevi culture has a rich heritage in poems and music because of its worship style. In Anatolia, Bektashism is usually connected with Alevism.

The Alevi people were living in the Ottoman Sultanate and its successor, the Republic of Turkey, usually with troubles, as they, with their religion, did not fit the official (Sunni) expression of Islam.

Today, Alevis in Turkey are fighting to be respected as a separate religious-cultural group that can freely demonstrate their peculiar way of life. As a matter of fact, the Alevi people could not express themselves freely for centuries, including in present-day Turkey, which should learn to practice both minority rights and democracy.

Finally, if Turkey wants to join the EU, surely, it has to provide a maximum of the required standards of protection of all kinds of minorities, including religious and religious-cultural ones. That can be a chance for the Alevi people in Turkey to improve their status within society.

Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity, which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. The author of the text does not have any moral, political, scientific, material, or legal responsibility for the views expressed in the article.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic is an ex-university professor and a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade, Serbia.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOGOMILS

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUFI

POST MODERN PAGANISM

Madagascar's youth revive ancestral rites in search of identity

Facing unemployment and social tensions, young people in Madagascar are returning to ancestral possession rituals and traditions tied to identity and belonging.


Issued on: 04/01/2026 - RFI

The skull of the zebu, sacrificed to the ancestors during the Alakoasibe ceremony, is later placed at the entrance of the house in honour of ancestral spirits. Its cutting follows specific techniques passed down by elders to younger people. © RFI/Sarah Tetaud

In a small town near Mahajanga, chants of the Sakalava, one of Madagascar’s ethnic groups, drift through the open windows of a house where around 60 guests, mostly young people, are gathered in a living room filled with incense and music.

During the ceremony, some participants fall into a trance, their bodies believed to be temporarily inhabited by ancestral spirits.

At one point, five people are possessed at the same time. Some bodies tremble beneath cloths, while others suddenly grow still. A woman inhabited by a male spirit removes her clothing before slowly returning to her normal state.

Watching closely is Josiane Lazare, 30, seated on a mat in the room.

She continues to welcome guests and serve drinks until well into the early hours. Lazare heads La Fac Madagascar, a platform dedicated to preserving Malagasy traditions, and plays a central role in the ceremony.

“We are searching for identity; especially young people,” she tells RFI. “This ritual allows us to interact with our ancestors, to find ourselves and understand where we come from and where we are going.”

Incantations mark the moment when the Saha, people who allow their bodies to be inhabited by ancestral spirits, enter a state of possession. Those watching wait until the spirit has calmed before approaching to speak with it. © RFI/Sarah Tétaud


Lazare says her generation is determined to keep traditions alive.

“We see ourselves as the 'Gen Z of tradition', fighting to preserve the values of our ancestors,” she explains.

Many young people feel excluded from decisions about the country’s future, she says, adding that communities where elders pass on ritual knowledge offer a different model.

“Among those who keep these traditions, there is mutual respect. Adults pass things on to us and encourage us to take our place.”

Madagascar's Gen Z uprising, as told by three young protesters
Learning the rites

That transmission continues into the early hours of the morning.

After the sacrifice of a zebu, a type of cattle common in Madagascar, elders teach younger participants gathered around them how to cut the animal correctly. At around 3am, an elder gives instructions by the light of a headlamp.

“If you look at these horns, if we cut them properly, we’ll be able to hang the skull outside the house to honour the ancestors. Look, big brother, you need to cut a bit lower here,” he says.

A younger man struggles to follow the guidance. “There’s something I don’t understand. I followed your advice, but look, it’s not coming off, it’s too hard,” he replies.

The elder tells him to "cut even lower".

The zebu sacrificed to the ancestors during the Alakoasibe ceremony is carefully cut. Part of the animal is later shared among those attending the ceremony, with the cutting carried out using techniques taught by elders to younger people. © RFI/Sarah Tétaud


As the sun rises, the ceremony moves into its final stages, with purification rites followed by a shared meal. Johnson Fierens, prince of Belmamoun, a local royal lineage, and host of the ceremony, gathers people in his living room to reflect on what they have witnessed.

“When you take part in something, you have to understand what it means,” he tells them. “This rite educates us, corrects us and shapes us. Respect for tradition is the key to developing our country.”

Fierens urges the younger generation to focus their energy carefully. “You are not going to learn the traditions of other countries. Use your strength for good,” he says.

A photographer’s journey into Malagasy ancestral rituals

A society under strain

The turn towards ancestral practices comes against a backdrop of deep social pressure. Malagasy society is under strain, with many young people facing poverty and lack of jobs. More than 40 percent of 18 to 35-year-olds are unemployed.

Those tensions were laid bare during a recent wave of anger among Generation Z, which led to a sudden change of government in October. Youth-led protests over electricity and water shortages spread nationwide, forcing the president to flee the country.

It is against this backdrop that some young people are turning back to their cultural roots.

Zeena Ranieri, an anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Antananarivo, says the movement reflects a society in transition.

“Every political, economic and cultural context has shaken Malagasy society,” she tells RFI. “It has become a society searching for identity and for ways forward.”

Young people, she says, feel disconnected from the paths laid out for them, education that does not lead to employment and social models that no longer offer stability or fulfilment.

“We cannot find work with what we learned. We cannot find happiness with the reference points we were given,” Ranieri says. “That's why there is a break. We know we need a new identity and new reference points.”

For some young Malagasy, that search does not mean rejecting modern life but living alongside it. Ancestral rites offer defined roles, shared rules and a recognised place within the community.

This story is based on a radio report in French by RFI correspondent Sarah Tétaud

Rare fresco of Jesus as the 'Good Shepherd' uncovered in Turkish town visited by the pope

IZNIK, Turkey (AP) — The painting was discovered in August in an underground tomb near Iznik, a town in northwestern Turkey that secured its place in Christian history as the place where the Nicene Creed was adopted in A.D. 325.

Mehmet Guzel and Andrew Wilks
December 15, 2025
AP

IZNIK, Turkey (AP) — Archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered one of the most important finds from Anatolia’s early Christian era: a fresco of a Roman-looking Jesus as the “Good Shepherd.”

The painting was discovered in August in an underground tomb near Iznik, a town in northwestern Turkey that secured its place in Christian history as the place where the Nicene Creed was adopted in A.D. 325. Pope Leo XIV recently visited the town as part of his first overseas trip.

At the time, the region was part of the Roman Empire, and the tomb in the village of Hisardere is believed to date to the 3rd century, a time when Christians still faced widespread persecution.

The Good Shepherd fresco depicts a youthful, clean-shaven Jesus dressed in a toga and carrying a goat across his shoulders. Researchers say it is one of the rare instances in Anatolia where Jesus is portrayed with distinctly Roman attributes.

Before the cross was widely adopted as Christianity’s universal symbol, the Good Shepherd motif played a key role in expressing faith, indicating protection, salvation and divine guidance.

Despite its central role in early Christianity, however, only a few examples of the Good Shepherd have been found in Anatolia and the one in Hisardere is the best preserved.

The Associated Press was the first international media organization granted access to the tomb. Lead archaeologist Gulsen Kutbay described the artwork as possibly the “only example of its kind in Anatolia.”

The walls and ceiling of the cramped tomb are decorated with bird and plant motifs. Portraits of noble men and women, accompanied by slave attendants, also decorate the walls.

Eren Erten Ertem, an archaeologist from Iznik Museum, said the frescoes showed “a transition from late paganism to early Christianity, depicting the deceased being sent off to the afterlife in a positive and fitting manner.”

The excavation uncovered the skeletons of five individuals, anthropologist Ruken Zeynep Kose said. Because of poor preservation, it was impossible to determine the ages of two of them, but the others were two young adults and a 6-month-old infant.

Pope Leo XIV visited Iznik last month to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea that produced a creed, or statement of faith, that is still recited by millions of Christians today.

Joined by patriarchs and priests from the Eastern and Western churches, Leo prayed that Christians might once again be united.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presented a tile painting of the Good Shepherd discovery to Leo during his visit.

Anatolia witnessed pivotal moments in Christian history: St. Paul was born in Tarsus, St. John spent his final years in Ephesus and the Virgin Mary may have lived her last days near the same city.

_____

Wilks reported from Istanbul.

Opinion

The theology of climate denial comes to the Pentagon

(RNS) — If you want cover for rolling back climate initiatives, few one-liners do as much work as calling them religious.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during the 4th annual Northeast Indiana Defense Summit at Purdue University Fort Wayne, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Fort Wayne, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Colin Weaver
November 20, 2025
RNS


(RNS) — In his speech to senior military leaders on Sept. 30, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took a well-worn page out of the climate skeptic’s playbook: He framed climate change research, policy and activism as a “religion.” More specifically, he declared there was “no more climate change worship” in the Department of War.

Hegseth has been calling concern with climate change a “religion” for a while. He’s far from alone. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced a wave of sweeping environmental deregulations back in March, exclaiming, “we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.” (Zeldin likes the rhetoric.)

Similar remarks were made during the first Trump administration. In 2016, Kathleen Hartnett White, a nominee to head the Council on Environmental Quality, called belief in climate change a “kind of paganism.” William Happer, a physicist and frequent adviser to President Donald Trump in 2017, called climate scientists “a glassy-eyed cult.” More recently, former Trump economic adviser and Heritage Foundation fellow Stephen Moore asserted that “climate change is not a science, it’s a religion.”

The popularity of this rhetoric makes sense. If you want cover for rolling back climate initiatives, few one-liners do as much work as calling them religious.

Anti-environmentalists and climate skeptics have been calling environmentalists “religious” and “fanatical” for decades. In 1971, Richard John Neuhaus published “In Defense of People: Ecology and the Seduction of Radicalism,” a book that described strands of the environmental movement as devotional, absolutist and under the delusion of a sacred mission.

Fast forward to 2003, when Michael Crichton — yes, that Michael Crichton — called environmentalism the religion “we all need to get rid of.” Two years later, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe called “man-induced global warming … an article of religious faith.” (He’s the one who used the snowball to “disprove” climate change 10 years later.) Meanwhile, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a right-wing evangelical anti-environmentalist think tank, has regularly used the same slogan.

In 2017, its “Resisting the Green Dragon” campaign went live, which called environmentalism a false religion. (On how American evangelicals pivoted from environmental curiosity in the 1980s to animosity in the ’90s, see Neall W. Pogue’s “The Nature of the Religious Right” and Robin Veldman’s “The Gospel of Climate Skepticism.”) Likewise, throughout the 2000s and 2010s, journalists such as Bret Stephens and Congress-people like Lamar Smith invoked the climate-religion comparison.

But why does this rhetoric work? On one level, it is a familiar way to frame environmentalists as fanatical and dogmatic while positioning their critics as reasonable and realistic. After Zeldin mentioned climate religion, for example, he pivoted to discussing how his policies will save trillions in taxes, reignite American manufacturing and unleash “America’s full potential” while still protecting human and environmental health.

This sloganeering invites us to imagine anyone who wants to constrain our reliance on fossil fuels as opposed to a balanced approach to economics, energy and human well-being. From this angle, it just makes sense to drill, baby, drill and to roll back such principles as the endangerment finding, which states that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

Yet on another level, the idea of fighting a climate religion appeals to a narrative that has circulated widely among conservative evangelicals going back at least to the 1970s. In that story, secular humanists and others on the left have their own kind of religion, one bent on displacing Christianity. This narrative feeds what religion scholar Veldman calls the “embattled mentality” among many on the religious right. Drawing on her research among evangelicals in Georgia, Veldman argues that evangelical climate skepticism is significantly connected to how environmentalists and, more recently, climate advocates are associated with these forces of Christian displacement.

The idea of fighting a climate religion plays into these replacement anxieties. This dynamic is powerfully symbolized by evangelicals like Inhofe when they invoke their faith to counter climate science. For some right-wing Christians, the struggle against climate-based reforms is part of a larger holy war. That is something Hegseth, also an evangelical, makes explicit in “American Crusade,” which frames the U.S. as besieged by secular leftists, including environmentalists.

As Lisa Sideris has observed, the rhetoric of climate religion is a long-standing strategy to discredit both religion and science while obscuring the very real causes and effects of human-caused climate change in the present and future. So when skeptics use this slogan we get Orwellian doublespeak. The relevant paganism here is the cult of carbon and capital and its curious marriage to strands of conservative Christianity. Skeptics investing in and defunding research on catastrophic global warming are trying to claim in effect, “We’re not the fanatics, you are!”

The rhetorical trick is old, but what is new is the Department of War using it to mask the rolling back of climate initiatives at the Pentagon. In his beautiful and disturbing book “The Nutmeg’s Curse,” Amitav Ghosh describes the vicious relationship between the Pentagon and climate change: On the one hand, Ghosh says, the U.S. military has been one of the most rigorous and longest-standing students of global warming. (Among other sources, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse cited naval climate research in response to Inhofe’s snowball.)

On the other hand, the military is a massive consumer of fossil fuels and concrete, to say nothing of land degradation, ecocide and pollution, all of which drives climate change and environmental injustice. That relationship alone is shocking: The U.S. military is significantly contributing to the very global crises it is preparing for and responding to (in the forms of, say, climate migration and resource wars).

But with respect to climate skepticism, I used to find a shred of bitter consolation — and a rhetorical tool — in knowing that the military took climate change deadly seriously. Perhaps no more. The denialist rhetoric that initially served to undermine environmental regulation has migrated into the language of the security state itself.


(Colin Weaver is a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Chicago Divinity School. A version of this article originally appeared in Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the divinity school. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

A Samhain Message to an Embattled Trans Youth

Nicky Reid

November 7, 2025

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Image by Delia Giandeini.

Thousands of years ago, on the sacred rock from which my ancestors fled, this season of the year was celebrated as Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the summer harvest and the beginning of the darker months of the year. This was also a time of sacred upheaval and spiritual transformation, when the veil between the material world and the spirit world was thin, allowing lost spirits to return to earth and the normal roles of society to be inverted. At twilight, the craggy hills of the moors were alive with the glow of massive bonfires set by peasants embracing the darkness in drag.

Eventually, this became what is now known as Halloween and it is really little wonder considering those roots that what became known as Halloween became less commonly known among my people as “Queer Christmas.”

Chaos reigns, the young govern the streets after dark and social transgressions typically demonized are set free to be flaunted flamboyantly by the light of the moon. All of which is beautiful enough in its own right, but this season is so much more than that for a person like me who considers their gender identity to be an integral part of their spiritual journey.

I am a Celtic Christian Pagan who reveres the Virgin Mary as a representative of the Tripple Goddess found throughout ancient matriarchal societies. I also pray to the Morrigana, three sister goddesses of ancient Celtic lore typically associated with battle but also with transformation and necessary change.

While there exists little direct evidence of third genders in ancient Celtic society and little direct evidence of much else of these tribes in general, considering that this was one of many sacred oral traditions wiped out by the tyranny of the churches who used the cross as a weapon for conquest and homogeny, the surviving myths of Celtic heathenry are rife with the same narratives of spiritual gender fluidity that defined many neighboring pagan cultures where the history of revered third genders remains very tangible.

My own embrace of a gender identity that refused to be governed by the limitations of the material world triggered the unlocking of decades of repressed trauma at the hands of the Catholic Church, who replaced the Celtic Druids of my ancestral homeland, along with multiple identities representing the young girls these men failed to silence.

Since becoming a woman divided among five personalities, my relationship with Mary and the Morrigana has become quite direct. They speak to me in words too sacred for language and they have a lot to say about the times we live in. Much like the months of the year ushered in by Samhain, these are days of darkness. America’s carcinogenic roots of colonialism and white supremacy are strangling the few illusions of democracy that we once held dear. Soldiers stock the streets of America’s crumbling metropolises while genocide of all kinds has become an open part of public policy.

These forces of unconcealed darkness have decided to make a point of trying to police the young in particular. Those yet to be initiated into their cult of conformity and murder, especially today’s Queer youth who they never seem to stop writing laws against. Literally thousands of laws seeking to render the existence of young gender outlaws intolerable.

An estimated 40% of trans youth between the ages of 13 and 17 live in states with severe restrictions on healthcare that simply allows them to postpone puberty with fewer known side effects than antidepressants. Dozens of states have turned the already carceral compulsory school system in this country into biological apartheid regimes in which adult public servants are granted the ability to police genitalia in bathrooms and locker rooms to insure the purity of their constructed gender binary.

This is all very personal to me, not just because I carry the scars from a transgender childhood but because a culture of survivalism informs the very existence of my modern tribe. In Queer culture if you are an open trans person who has lived passed the age of thirty without being broken or assimilated, you are considered to be an elder and I mean this quite literally. Out of all the activism that I have engaged myself in with organizing Queer resistance in my conservative rural environment, working with young people, specifically Queer and trans youth, is by far the most rewarding.

When you are part of such a small and marginalized minority, surrounded by people who couldn’t possibly comprehend your very existence if they tried, having just a few people in your life who have been there and survived, listening and sharing, can literally be a lifeline.

The sheer amount of destruction I did to myself in a world where there wasn’t even a word for the way I felt other than ‘strange’, or ‘pervert’ is irreversible. Suicide was a viable option on more than one occasion during this bleak existence. So, now when trans youth come to me for advice, I am both humbled and obliged, and the advice that I have to give them during this sacred season of Samhain is to show your teeth and remain ungovernable.

The people currently running this desperate nation are terrified of you and they should be. These are people who define their existence by defining other people’s existence and you are living a lifestyle that defies basic bureaucratic categorization. The most basic principle of centralized government is the tyranny of paperwork, systems upon systems of filing, compiling, defining, categorizing… Reducing humanity into a series of boxes to check on a scantron and the first box is always ‘male or female.’

You have exploded this system simply by crossing out the word ‘or.’ Your average Queer youth in the age of Trump changes their gender identity with the color of their hair and consults their friends online for advice before even thinking about addressing the tyranny of the clinic. They have decided to find themselves publicly and without apology, and their numbers are rising.

In 2023, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 3.3% of high school students identify openly as trans or non-binary and another 2.2% are questioning their government arranged gender designation. Considering how little teens talk to the goddamn CDC, I don’t think I’m being presumptuous for assuming these numbers merely represent the tip of the iceberg. Pew has found that 5.1% of adults younger than 30 openly identify as trans or non-binary compared to just 1.6% of those between 30 and 49 and 0.3% of those 50 or older.

The hyper-statists of the Christian Right look at these numbers and shutter. They will tell you and any other asshole who will listen that this is all part of some “Cultural Marxist” wave of behavioral decadence that poses an existential threat to Western Civilization, and I actually agree with them on the second part.

After growing bored with Marx myself by my mid-twenties, an old Queer sage named William Burroughs turned me on to a quirky German historical philosopher named Oswald Spengler, best known for his epic treatise Decline of the West. While Spengler is frequently name-dropped by trolls on the right, based on my own studies, I suspect very few of them have actually done their homework. The central point of ‘Decline’ is that all cultures are essentially living organisms that tend to exist in lifespans of about 2000 years and that the final stage of a culture is the sterile stasis of civilization.

Based on his studies on other past empires from the Romans to the Aztecs, Spengler believed the West to be in the twilight of its existence which is an era typically defined by decadence.

However, Spengler didn’t define decadence in terms of sexual perversion or debauchery. He defined this symptom of cultural collapse as being far more defined by the overly rational urban materialist, lost in an overpopulated desert of money and things with no connection to any real spiritual roots but only shallow replicants, like stadium churches and television preachers. Spengler also rejected the notion of culture being defined by blood and soil, stating that its true definition comes from the intimacy experienced between people with a shared history, values and vision of the future.

By Spenglerian definitions, it isn’t today’s trans youth who are the decadents. These children are rejecting the material world to follow the dictates of their souls and leaving today’s temples of emptiness in favor of a spirituality defined by gnosis or personal experience. All of this puts them in line with the values of ancient paganism represented by Samhain as well as movements like Black Power, Aztlan and other forms of indigenous revivalism.

It is our enemies in the Christian Right, with their bourgeoise fantasies of Zionist conquest and white picket fences who are the true decadents and that is why their civilization is dammed to irrevocable decline.

In this time of darkness, with the veil between the spirit world and our universe thinning by the second, I can only tell the youngest members of my culture that they are the ones who carry the light of our ancestors. They are part of a sacred revival that can provide the survivors of Western Civilization with a rare opportunity to start again and possibly even avoid the cycle of destruction represented by the soulless nation state and the fragile empires they aspire to become.

Wake up children. Samhain is upon us. It’s time to stop dreaming and start truly living again. Let the fire burn brightly behind you and may it illuminate your path forward.

Nicky Reid is an agoraphobic anarcho-genderqueer gonzo blogger from Central Pennsylvania and assistant editor for Attack the System. You can find her online at Exile in Happy Valley.