Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 11/01/2022
Information published on Facebook claims that two Christian churches are being sold in Turkey. Along with the link to this text on the website Sputnjik, an alleged quote by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also published:
“We will sell all the churches because of the economic crisis, except Hagia Sophia, it is proof of our triumph over Orthodoxy!”
The information that Turkey is selling two churches due to the financial crisis was originally published by the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung. However, the Twitter account of the Turkish fact-checking platform announced that this was an incorrect claim, i.e., that Turkey cannot sell churches because they are not owned by the state, so only church owners have the authority to sell them. This can also be concluded from earlier media announcements (link, link) about church sales.
As published in one of the media texts from October 2020, the Syrian community asked the Turkish government to buy the church and open it to tourists, due to its historical and religious significance, stating that the Christian community has no objections and would buy it if it had money.
Also, the quote attributed to the Turkish president was fabricated, and it is impossible to find a similar statement on the Internet that could be related to him.
Therefore, we rate this post as fake news. This rating is given to the original media report (entirely produced by the media that published it), which contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is assessed as fake news is created and disseminated to misinform the public, that is, to present a claim that is completely false as fact.