Hans Rustad Tilmann Geske ble 46 år. Han hadde viet sitt liv til bevaring av kristen kultur i Tyrkia. Det skulle koste ham livet. Islamister skar halsen over på ham og to tyrkiske konvertitter etter grusom tortur. Toleransen for kristne i Tyrkia er lav.
Fredag ble han begravet i Malatya, byen hvor han drev et bibelselskap sammen med tyrkiske kristne.
Tilman Geske og kone Susanne dro til Tyrkia på bryllupsreise i 1992. Det endte med at de lærte seg tyrkisk og slo seg ned. Deres tre barn ble født i Tyrkia, og de ville vise at det gikk an å leve som vanlige folk og likevel være kristne.
In Turkey, Christians and other non-Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the population and are often viewed with suspicion. Susan Geske said her husband was sensitive to his Muslim neighbors and was not one to push his faith on others.
«He didn’t have the idea of tossing out Bibles,» she said. «If you knew Tilmann, he was never like that. He was very shy, he would never do that.»
«This was his dream — not to be just a Christian worker, but to be a part of the world,» Susanne Geske said. «He wanted to work like the Turks, not just to be a foreigner who gets money from abroad. He wanted to show that you can be both a Christian and a normal worker.»
Men andre så det åpenbart annerledes. Fem personer er arrestert, mistenkt for drapene. Motivet skal ha vært religiøs fiendskap.
Under begravelsen fredag kom det til syne. Broren til en av de drepte tyrkiske konvertittene hadde reist 22 mil for å hente brorens lik, før hans kristne kone kunne begrave det. De hadde ikke hatt noen kontakt etter at han konverterte. Nå ville han få lagt broren i muslimsk jord. Men likhuset nektet å utlevere den døde og han måtte reise tilbake med uforrettet sak.
The deep-seated suspicion of Christian influence was evident at the morgue Friday, where a separate family drama played out.
In a cold drizzle, a man leaned on a cane fingering Islamic prayer beads. Hatem Aydin, 56, was the older brother of one of the two slain Turkish Christians, and he had come 22 hours by bus to pick up his brother’s body.
Aydin wanted to get his brother Necati’s body before the man’s wife did, and quickly bury it in an Islamic ceremony, but the morgue wouldn’t let him. Hatem Aydin said his family hadn’t spoken to Necati in years, the split driven by the younger brother’s decision to convert to Christianity after marrying a Turkish Christian.
«First he told us, ‘I’m reading the Bible,’ and we were OK with that,» Hatem Aydin said. «But after he got married, he starting bringing Christian books, then CDs, and after that we didn’t talk to him anymore.»
Hatem Aydin, a tailor, said he would not go to his brother’s Christian funeral and turned back for the long ride home.
Geske ble gravlagt på en overgrodd armensk kirkegård. Også den et bevis på at det har gått dårlig med de kristne i Tyrkia.
Nå er Tyrkia 99 prosent muslimsk. Likevel skaper den ene prosenten med kristne motvilje.
