Until less than a decade ago secularism was still considered t h e idea epitomizing the ethos of modern Turkey. Today, this doctrine has lost its champions. The elite that traditionally defended those values - mainly the military, the judiciary, and the academia - are scattered or silenced under AKP's authoritarian regime. The aim of this paper is to expound on the vanishing from the public discourse of the idea of secularism. A secular polity is a precondition for democracy. A critical analysis of how secularism historically has been handled by its protagonists will therefore help clarifying issues related to the present crisis of democracy. In the Turkish context secularism has stood for state control over religion, often with assertive and authoritarian overtones. The last big contestation over secularism was the military intervention of February 28, 1997, which resulted in the breakup of Islamist Necmettin Erbakan's government and closure of his Welfare Party. This was followed by mobilization of laic-oriented masses into high-pitched street demonstrations. What these manifestations revealed, however, was that official secularism (laicism) was but a rigid ideology lacking real concern for rationally organized, long-lasting institutions in tune with a democratic order. Has not Turkish secularism always suffered from this deficiency? To a large extent yes, but neither have initiatives to bring about reforms been totally lacking. For example, between the middle of the 1970s and a decade ahead, important, but too often overlooked, efforts were spent to render the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) - core institution in the secular order - a better regulated and transparent design as "public authority." These efforts largely failed, but in retrospect they tell a story about how reform-minded actors were able to initiate transformations, even despite the military junta (1980-83). The paper deals with issues and interest groups involved in this contentious process, and discusses the social, religious and political dynamics at work during this critical period. On balance, the heavy-handedness of Turkish secularism has played into the hands of non-democratic forces. Thus, when AKP got into power in 2002, Diyanet became an easy and gratifying prey. Under AKP Diyanet has been considerably boosted, but to the price of loosing its prestige; insted figuring as a collaborator to an oppressive, in practice one-party regime, which has dropped the secularism agenda all together. Except for various archival resources, this paper is based on autobiographical and interview material.