Pope Benedict XVI

Over at Ad Orientem, John wonders about the Green Patriarch’s pending trip (HT: George M.)

By my count H.A.H.’s itinerary includes…

6 liturgical functions + 1 prayer service at the UN
8 functions at which he will be honored or given some form of award
3 excursions that appear to be mainly sight seeing
2 functions where he will be speaking but do not appear to be aimed at honoring the EP and…
24 dinners, or private receptions in his honor with VIPs (excluding private meetings with Orthodox clergy). Many of these dinners and receptions will be taking place in 5 star establishments such as the Waldorf Astoria where H.A.H will be staying for much of his visit.

I am very glad to see that His All Holiness will be fed decently during his visit.

Still I wonder… Continue reading →

From Interfax (Oct. 7):

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk has denied reports that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia might visit the Vatican in the near future.

“No preparations are being made for the Patriarch’s trip to the Vatican and his meeting with the Pope at any particular place or at any particular time,” Archbishop Hilarion said while taking questions from journalists in Moscow.

The possibility of the Pope’s visit to Russia in the near future is not being discussed, either, he said.

“The matter may imply a meeting on neutral ground, as they say now,” he said.

Archbishop Hilarion insisted that the main purpose of a dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church is not so much a meeting between their heads as such as “radical improvement in our relations and the overcoming of the existing problems.”

He mentioned among such problems proselytism, a too aggressive missionary policy on the part of the Roman Catholic Church in the traditional Orthodox territory in the 1990s, and the expansion of the Uniates in Ukraine.

Vatican analyst Sandro Magister takes a closer look at the recent meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. “But like other conciliatory gestures in the past, this one also risks producing no results,” notes the introduction on Chiesa online. Magister examines Pope Benedict XVI’s reservations about the entry of Turkey into the European Union and “the caution” of Vatican diplomacy.

Erdogan and the Christians. Few Promises, Zero Action

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August 27, 2009 – Samuel Huntington called Turkey “Janus-faced,” you never know if it’s a friend or enemy of the West.

The same thought must have come to mind for Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, when last August 15 he welcomed Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a visit to the orphanage and monastery of Saint George Koudounas on the Princes’ Islands in the Marmara Sea.

It was the first time that a Turkish prime minister had gone to the Princes Islands, traditionally inhabited by Christians, and to a building, the orphanage, which after being requisitioned by the Turkish authorities was ruled to belong to the ecumenical patriarchate by the court of Strasbourg in June of 2008.

During his visit, Erdogan, accompanied by four of his ministers, had lunch with Bartholomew I and with representatives of the religious minorities in Turkey – Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Jewish, Syriac Orthodox, and Catholic – to whom he made guarantees against all forms of religious and ethnic discrimination.

“My neighbor must be met with love, because he is also a creature of God,” Erdogan said, citing a maxim from the Mevlevi Shiite confraternity, which emerged on Konya in the 13th century, with some elements taken from Christianity.

Asked for a comment, Bartholomew I told Asia News: “Erdogan’s presence was an honor for us, and it gave us an opportunity to present our problems directly, although he already knows about them. We invited the prime minister to the see of the ecumenical patriarchate and to Halki, and Erdogan thanked us for the invitation.”

Halki is another island, the site of the seminary of theological formation for the ecumenical patriarchate, which was closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Last June 10, in Brussels, Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner for enlargement and therefore also overseeing the possible entry of Turkey, stated that this entry is conditional in part on the reopening of the Halki seminary.

Erdogan has until December of 2009 to present the authorities in Brussels with an account of the progress that Turkey has made in meeting the standards necessary for entry into the EU. For the patriarchate, this is one more reason to hope that the theological seminary of Halki will finally be reopened and resume its functions.

Unfortunately, however, “Janus” has repeatedly frustrated expectations, showing this and other religious minorities in Turkey not its friendly face, but its hostile one. Continue reading →