Editing Persecution of Christians (section)

===Seljuk Empire===
Sultan Alp Arslan pledged: “I shall consume with the sword all those people who venerate the cross, and all the lands of the Christians shall be enslaved.”<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=leqqBgAAQBAJ|title=Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The battle of Mazikert|page=244|isbn=9780748631155 |last1=Hillenbrand |first1=Carole |date=21 November 2007 }}</ref> Alp Arslan ordered the Turks:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5rmHCwAAQBAJ|title=Manzikert 1071: The Breaking of Byzantium|page=92|isbn=9781780965055 |last1=Nicolle |first1=David |date=20 August 2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Henceforth all of you be like lion cubs and eagle young, racing through the countryside day and night, slaying the Christians and not sparing any mercy on the Roman nation}}

It was said that “the emirs spread like locusts, over the face of the land,”<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1291369|title=Nomadization and Islamization in Asia Minor|page=50|jstor=1291369 |last1=Vryonis |first1=Speros |journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers |date=26 March 1975 |volume=29 |doi=10.2307/1291369 }}</ref> invading every corner of Anatolia, sacking some of ancient Christianity's most important cities, including Ephesus, home of Saint John the Evangelist; Nicaea, where Christendom's creed was formulated in 325; and Antioch, the original see of Saint Peter, and enslaved many.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0lxHPgAACAAJ |title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century |first1=Speros |last1=Vryonis |year=2008 |publisher=American Council of Learned Societies |isbn=9781597404761}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHrKDwAAQBAJ |title=The Secrets of Ephesus |first1=Izabela |last1=Miszczak |year=2020 |publisher=ASLAN Publishing House |isbn=9788395654039}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=an9xCwAAQBAJ |title=Around Ephesus and Kuşadası |first1=Izabela |last1=Miszczak |year=2016 |publisher=ASLAN Publishing House |isbn=9788394426903}}</ref> According to French historian J. Laurent, hundreds of thousands of the native Anatolian Christians were reported to have been massacred or enslaved during the invasions of Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xNXZAAAAMAAJ|title=A Military History of the Western World: From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Lepanto|page=404|isbn=9780306803048 |last1=Fuller |first1=J. F. C. |date=22 August 1987 |publisher=Hachette Books }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2y-eBZUMWgC|title=Byzance et les Turcs Seldjoucides dans l'Asie occidentale jusqu'en 1081|pages=106–109 |last1=Laurent |first1=Joseph |date=1913 }}</ref>

Destruction and desecration of Churches became very widespread during the Turkic invasions of Anatolia which caused enormous damage to the ecclesiastical foundations throughout Asia minor:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBpIAAAAMAAJ|title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century|pages=194–95|isbn=9780520015975 |last1=Vryonis |first1=Speros |year=1971 |publisher=University of California Press }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Even before the battle of Manzikert, Turkish raids resulted in the pillaging of the famous churches of St. Basil at caesareia and of the Archangel Michael at Chonae. In the decade following 1071 the destruction of churches and the flight of the clergy became widespread. churches were often pillaged and destroyed. The churches of St. Phocas in Sinope and Nicholas at Myra, both important centers of pilgrimage, were destroyed. The monasteries of Mt. Latrus, Strobilus, and elanoudium on the western coast were sacked and the monks driven out during the early invasions, so that the monastic foundations in this area were completely abandoned until the Byzantine reconquest and the extensive support of successive Byzantine emperors once more reconstituted them. Greeks were forced to surround the church of St. John at Ephesus with walls to protect it from the Turks. The disruption of active religious life in the Cappadocian cave-monastic communies is also indicated for the twelfth century.}}

News of the great tribulation and persecutions of the eastern Christians reached European Christians in the west in the few years after the battle of Manzikert. A Frankish eyewitness says: "Far and wide they [Muslim Turks] ravaged cities and castles together with their settlements. Churches were razed down to the ground. Of the clergyman and monks whom they captured, some were slaughtered while others were with unspeakable wickedness given up, priests and all, to their dire dominion and nuns—alas for the sorrow of it!—were subjected to their lusts."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D-xIMAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: The Call from the East|pages=59–60|isbn=9780099555032 |last1=Frankopan |first1=Peter |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage }}</ref> In a letter to count Robert of Flanders, Byzantine emperor [[Alexios I Komnenos]] writes:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D-xIMAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: The Call from the East|page=61|isbn=9780099555032 |last1=Frankopan |first1=Peter |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage }}</ref>
{{blockquote|The holy places are desecrated and destroyed in countless ways. Noble matrons and their daughters, robbed of everything, are violated one after another, like animals. Some [of their attackers] shamelessly place virgins in front of their own mothers and force them to sing wicked and obscene songs until they have finished having their ways with them... men of every age and description, boys, youths, old men, nobles, peasants and what is worse still and yet more distressing, clerics and monks and woe of unprecedented woes, even bishops are defiled with the sin of sodomy and it is now trumpeted abroad that one bishop has succumbed to this abominable sin.}}

In a poem, Malik Danishmend boasts: "I am Al Ghazi Danishmend, the destroyer of churches and towers". Destruction and pillaging of churches figure prominently in his poem. Another part of the poem talks about the simultaneous conversion of 5,000 people to Islam and the murder of 5,000 others.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vvMgAwAAQBAJ|title=The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950-1072|page=245|isbn=9781139560986 |last1=Ellenblum |first1=Ronnie |date=2 August 2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

[[Michael the Syrian]] wrote: “As the Turks were ruling the lands of Syria and Palestine, they inflicted injuries on Christians who went to pray in Jerusalem, beat them, pillaged them, and levied the poll tax [jizya]. Every time they saw a caravan of Christians, particularly of those from Rome and the lands of Italy, they made every effort to cause their death in diverse ways".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHgMAQAAMAAJ|title=Der Islam: Zeitschrift für geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients, Volume 83, Issues 1-2|year=2006 |page=101}}</ref> Such was the fate German pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1064. According to one of the surviving pilgrims:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pr28oAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: A Brief History with Documents|page=56|isbn=9781457629105 |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Jay Carter |date=26 December 2014 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Accompanying this journey was a noble abbess of graceful body and of a religious outlook. Setting aside the cares of the sisters committed to her and against the advice of the wise, she undertook this great and dangerous pilgrimage. The pagans captured her, and the sight of all, these shameless men raped her until she breathed her last, to the dishonor of all Christians. Christ's enemies performed such abuses and others like them on the christians.}}