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    The Turkish way of treating minorities...

    The Halki Seminary and the Patriarchate's Existential Crisis

    Posted By Allen
    Yekikan On July 30, 2009 @ 12:35 pm In Commentary, Featured Story,
    International, Turkey | No Comments

    AFP reported on Thursday that
    the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, Bartholomew I, was hopeful
    Turkey would re-open a historic seminary it shut down nearly four
    decades ago. The Halki Orthodox

    Theological Seminary, located on the island of Halki off the coast of
    Istanbul, was the key Patriarchical institution for educating the
    Greek Orthodox Community and training its future clergy for more than
    a century before it was closed down by the Turkish government in 1971.

    The Patriarch was responding to signals last week by Turkey's Culture
    Minister that Ankara is planning to re-open the Greek seminary,
    considered vital to the survival of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in
    Istanbul.

    The Turkish Government forcibly closed down the Seminary under a law
    bringing Turkish universities under the state's control. Another law,
    however, made it illegal for anyone to enter the Orthodox priesthood
    unless they have graduated from Halki.

    Since the closure of the Halki
    Seminary, the Patriarchate has faced insurmountable barriers in
    staffing the Ecumenical Patriarchate to carry out the Church's many
    administrative and spiritual responsibilities. The only option left
    for the Patriarchate has been to bring clergymen and individuals from
    abroad to work at the ecumenical patriarchate, often illegally, since
    the Turkish government does not give them work permits.

    Furthermore, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has no property rights in
    Turkey and is taxed beyond excess. Under Turkish law, the General
    Directorate of Welfare Foundations has the power to unilaterally
    confiscate minority properties.

    Along with the Halki Seminary, the Turkish Government has confiscated
    (usually secretly) 75 % of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's properties,
    including homes, apartment buildings, schools, land, churches,
    monasteries, and even cemeteries.

    On March 20, 2006 the government erased the name of the Patriarchate
    from the ownership deed of the Orphanage of Buyukada, replacing it
    with the name of a minority foundation it had seized in 1997. This
    move resulted in the effective confiscation of the orphanage.

    The Turkish government proceeded with the confiscation despite an
    appeal to the European Court of Human Rights by the Patriarchate in
    2005. The Orphanage, which is the largest wooden building in Europe,
    had been a Patriarchal institution, celebrating 550 years of
    continuous service under the care and guidance of the Ecumenical
    Patriarchate, preserving the Orthodox Faith, Hellenic Ideals and Greek
    Education.

    In the eyes of the Turkish government, the Ecumenical Patriarchate
    does not exist as a legal entity, and as a result, has virtually no
    rights. Although it was established in 451 AD, Turkish authorities
    refuse to recognize the Patriarchate as `Ecumenical' or International.

    Turkish law has relegated this 2,000 year-old church, which serves as
    the focal point of Orthodox Christendom, to a Turkish institution.

    As a result, the Turkish government also controls the process by which
    the Ecumenical Patriarch is selected. Through illegal decrees, the
    government has imposed heavy restrictions on the election of the
    Ecumenical Patriarchs, requiring the Patriarch and the Hierarchs that
    elect him to be Turkish citizens. The very existence of the Ecumenical
    Patriarchate has been put in jeopardy as a consequence of these
    decrees.

    Turkish law requires that even priests must be Turkish citizens. This
    excludes eligible clergy from around the world from attending to
    Turkey's Greek community, which now numbers less than 3,000-most of
    which are elderly and not eligible candidates.

    There are currently roughly 200 Greek Orthodox Clergymen who live in
    Turkey and are Turkish citizens. Without the Halki Seminary, the
    Ecumenical Patriarchate has been forced to send its future clerics
    outside the country for training. Unfortunately, most do not return
    home. These restrictions severely limit not only who can become a
    priest, but also who can become the Ecumenical Patriarch.


    These policies are wearing away at the Christian presence in Turkey
    and threaten to eventually wipe out the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which
    stands as a 2,000 year-old spiritual beacon for more than 300,000
    million orthodox Christians around the world.

    Since 1923, successive Turkish Governments have subjected the
    Ecumenical Patriarchate to a protracted and systemic campaign of
    institutional and cultural repression, squeezing the country's Greek
    minority and its religious institutions to the point of complete
    exhaustion and despair.

    Despite direct stipulations in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that Turkey
    must legally recognize and protect its religious minorities, Christian
    communities in Turkey currently face unfair official restrictions
    regarding the ownership and operation of churches and seminaries. The
    Turkish Government interferes in the selection of their religious
    leaders.

    Christian education has all but vanished, while freedom of expression
    and association, although provided for on paper, tend to get people
    killed.

    This political climate of religious repression has, for decades,
    encouraged extremists to attack the Ecumenical Patriarchate in
    Istanbul defacing its walls and desecrating its cemeteries.

    In 1955, riots broke out in Istanbul and quickly turned into pogroms
    against Greeks as 73 Orthodox churches and 23 schools were vandalized,
    burned, or destroyed; 1,004 houses of Orthodox citizens were looted;
    and 4,348 stores, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, and 21 factories were
    destroyed. The Greek Orthodox population in 1955 was 100,000. In 1998,
    a Greek Orthodox official was murdered at his church, Saint Therapon,
    in Istanbul. The church was then robbed and set on fire. Growing
    focus on Turkey in recent years and the country's bid to join the
    European Union, has raised awareness and concern about the fate of the
    Patriarchate among governments, organizations and people around the
    world.

    The European Union has long asked Turkey to re-open the seminary in
    order to prove its commitment to human rights as it strives to become
    a member of the bloc.

    The Turkish Government, keen to boost its European credentials as it
    seeks EU membership, says it may finally take steps to prevent the
    destruction of one of the world's oldest Christian churches and its
    Congregation.

    The bitter reality is that the very existence of the Patriarchate has
    been threatened by the very government that is now vaguely promising
    to save it.

    Turkish authorities have been issued such promises for decades.
    ________________________________

    Article printed from Asbarez News: http://www.asbarez.com
    URL to article: http://www.asbarez.com/2009/07/30/the-halki-semina ry-and-the-patriarchates-existential-crisis/
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