Turkey

Victor Davis Hanson’s brief synopsis below also affects Constantinople and may help explain why it is so anxious to direct the American Church.

The Corner

At the present rate, Turkey has about as much business in NATO as Greece does in the EU. Both countries seem out of place in their respective organizations; both envy and resent northern Europe and the United States, and seek their attention through petulance; and both seem to traffic daily in conspiracy theories about going to war against each other.

The problem with both the EU and NATO is that, while there is always much gala celebration about who gets in and under what particular conditions, there is almost no attention given to the circumstances under which a member gets out of either organization. That will change in the next few years, given southern European debt, growing Islamization, and the apparent planned financial and military regression of the West.

In the meantime, we should pay attention to a growing concern in the southeastern Mediterranean: A bankrupt Greece has alienated its patrons in northern Europe, has alienated the U.S. through years of anti-American rhetoric, has little or no financial resources, and will be facing cutbacks in its military — and a newly assertive Turkey is carving out a position of influence in the region as the real, and far more serious, representative of Islamic government, perhaps in the fashion of the old Ottomans.

’We cannot breathe, the Patriarchate is dying,’ says patriarch
ASLI AYDINTAŞBAŞ
ISTANBUL – Milliyet
Thursday, December 24, 2009

Following criticism of his controversial statement to a U.S. television network describing his community’s problems, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew says his comments were emphasized, but the serious problem of opening Halki seminary needs to be addressed.

Criticized for telling U.S. network CBS that he felt “crucified in Turkey,” in an interview he told daily Milliyet, “We are without oxygen, the Patriarchate is dying.”

He said the interview with CBS was not planned and that the media had emphasized the crucifixion quote. He said this was a metaphor for detailing Greeks’ problems in Turkey, highlighted by the issue of the Halki seminary located on Heybeliada, one of Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands in Marmara Sea.

“What will we do, if we cannot raise men of the cloth? Our metropolitan bishops in Europe are over 70 years old. The ones here are 75 years old. Now, who will I nominate to this post,” said the patriarch, who will turn 70 this February. “Why should we nominate people to this post who were not raised in Turkey and educated on Heybeliada?” he asked.

“The seminary was open during Ottoman rule; [Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk [founder of Turkish Republic] did not close it down. But it was wrongly closed down in 1971, since it did not have university status but was a vocational school for higher education,” he said. Continue reading →

From Today’s Zaman (Dec. 24). No statement yet on the Patriarchate’s site.

The patriarchate’s statement said: “There are similar idioms in all languages, and they are not evaluated in their narrow meanings but in their broad sense in that language. While answering questions in that regard, the patriarch obviously did not intend to imply any pressure from our government.” The statement also said that there was a need to make a public announcement about the issue because the patriarch’s words were interpreted in a way that goes beyond their meaning.

Turkish government officials continue to denounce the patriarch for his crucifixion remark:

In İzmir, speaking at a conference organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç called the patriarch’s criticism “unacceptable,” while reiterating that Turkey doesn’t consider the patriarchate to be ecumenical in line with the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, which governs the status of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey. Continue reading →

An unsigned “call to action” in defense of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was published today on the “Faith: An Endowment for Orthodoxy and Hellenism” Web site. This appeal asks readers to sign a Web-based petition which demands that the “Turkish government … take steps to guarantee the recognition, safety, and protection of His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Patriarchate, the Seminary of Halki, and the ethnic minority of Greek Christians living in Turkey.”

The “call to action” placed the weight of its argument for religious freedom and human rights on a “Charter of Privileges to Christians” purported to have been signed by Muhammad, the founder of Islam, in the 7th Century. The “call to action” described this charter as emblematic of the “established universal position” of human rights that also inspired the U.S. Constitution.

The appeal:

To those who were privileged enough to see the, CBS 60 Minutes story about His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, that aired on December 20, 2009,

The segment focused on the challenges and struggles His All Holiness faces to sustain the Patriarchate, as well as the sacred early Christian churches and monuments in Turkey, under a government which has continually refused to recognize his title as Ecumenical Patriarch and also legitimize the legal status of the Patriarchate and related Greek properties. In the words of His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church and approximately 300 million followers around the world, he and other Greek-Christians living in Turkey, “are treated as second class citizens.”

One of the most compelling and factually important aspects of the segment was the reference to the Prophet Muhammad’s Charter of Privileges to Christians, in his letter to the Monks of St. Catherine Monastery. In 628 A.D., the Prophet Muhammad granted this Charter of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights and religious tolerance, including the protection of Christians, their freedom of worship and movement, their freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain their property and religious houses of worship, and the right to protection in war. (An English translation of the Prophet Muhammad’s Charter of Privileges, by Dr. A Zahoor and Dr. Z. Haq can be found at http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/charter1.html Continue reading →