St. Nicholas' home country nearly bans Christmas carols

Germany's Foreign Office was shocked at the irrational ban.

St. Nicholas spread good will and surprise gifts of food, gold and kind gestures in what is now known as Turkey - so why is one school banning him from the premises?

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - An email was sent to dozens of high school teachers at Istanbul Erkek Lisesi (Istanbul High School).

The email read, in part, "No more Christmas celebration and/or lessons on Christmas including carol singing is permitted, effective immediately."

German broadcast media Deutsche Welle (DW) reported the school denied sending the email but admitted German teachers have been "talking about Christmas and Christianity in a way that was not foreseen by the curriculum."

It was revealed several of the German teachers have been hard at work to present a Christmas choir concert at the school.

The choir director did make a few amendments to the music and carols but the performance was presented on its scheduled date.

The BBC reported the Turkish education ministry supervised the concert and was performed with permission from the students' parents.

Oddly, the teachers were not present at the choir performance with no reason provided for their absence.

The responsible party for the controversial emails remains to be revealed but the school admitted the effects were seen immediately.

The school's statement concluded: "it must be asked who these provocations are useful for. It is clear they do not serve Turkish-German relations."

Tensions between Germany and Turkey have been rising, particularly in the past year. Millions of Turkish origins currently reside in Germany and Germany recently recognized the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.

Leaked German reports suggest Turkey was quickly becoming the next Jihad hot spot while Turkey reintroduced the death penalty.

As tensions between the countries rise, Christmas nearly became one of many innocent bystanders ready for the slaughter. Hopefully Germany and Turkey can cool relations before tensions rise to a boiling point.

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