"Protestants to Turks: 'Thank you'
Friday, July 6, 2007
Mark LIEBERMAN
Accustomed, as we are, to thinking of the Renaissance centuries as the time when Europe awoke from the Dark Ages and experienced the flowering of humanistic values, which was also the precursor to the Enlightenment, there is another, darker side to that bright medallion. For these years were also years of total war, and in the present context, a time of murderous religious intolerance as well. Epitomized by the Pope's excommunication and the Habsburgs' internal exile of the ‘heretic' Martin Luther, these were fatal times indeed for dissenters. From the coast of Spain to the Romanian border, men and women who had fallen from the official Faith were condemned. Only one safe haven remained: the Ottoman Empire, bastion and beacon of tolerance"
More:Protestants to Turks: 'Thank you' - Turkish Daily News Jul 06, 2007
