SW News: Nationalist and Islamist parties have begun a campaign to prevent the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul from holding its traditional Assumption of Mary celebration on August 15 at a historic monastery in Trabzon.

Close friends of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have played a key role in the current campaign. Furthermore, nationalist and Islamist organizations are lending their support for the cancellation of the celebrations at the 1,600-year-old Sumela Monastery in Trabzon.

Cihat Yayc, the renowned retired admiral who presently leads the famous Turkish Maritime and Global Strategies Center, has taken an unusual step by initiating a campaign to oppose the Trabzon Governor's Office's permission for the forthcoming event.

Meanwhile, on August 3, the center's official Twitter account criticized Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the venerated spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide.

According to the tweet, the event's organizer is facing charges of breaking the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. Following World War I, Turkey and the Allied Powers, which included Greece, formed a historic deal in an effort to create defined boundaries and preserve peace.

Concerns have been expressed about the importance of the selected date, August 15, since it represents the historical event of the Ottoman invasion of Trabzon. It implies that this option might be seen as insulting to the country's Ottoman origins.

Furthermore, it claims that the ritual's objective is to possibly undercut or call into doubt the historical story of Trabzon's invasion, reinforcing the myth that these territories were originally Greek.

Meanwhile, former governing party legislator and Erdogan aide Mehmet Metiner shared one of Yayc's tweets to draw Erdogan's attention.