This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
An organized two day pogrom struck the Greek Orthodox community of Istanbul on September 6 and 7, 1955, also known as the Septemvriana or the Istanbul riots, triggered by the false report, later shown to have been planted, that Greek nationalists had bombed the Turkish consulate and Ataturk's birth house in Thessaloniki the day before. Mobs mobilized with lists of Greek-owned properties, drawn up in advance, attacked Greek Orthodox churches, cemeteries, schools, homes and businesses across the city, along with Armenian and Jewish minority properties caught in the same violence, over two nights before martial law finally halted it and restored order to the city's streets.
Dozens of Greek Orthodox churches and thousands of Greek, Armenian and Jewish owned properties were destroyed or looted. The pogrom is widely treated as the decisive event that emptied Istanbul's ancient Greek Orthodox Rum community over the following decades, alongside later Cyprus-linked expulsions, reducing a population of roughly one hundred thousand to a small remnant.