… it is doubtful whether in the long run the Greek nationalism that was being increasingly infused into the whole Orthodox organization was beneficial to Orthodoxy.

Well, THAT is an understatement.

Thank you for the link.

Greg,

Read this excerpt from the best book ever written on the Ecumenical Patriarchate – Runciman’s The Great Church in Captivity:

https://www.aoiusa.org/2009/09/nationalism-in-greek-orthodoxy

It helps to explain a lot of what we see now days, and contrasts those actions with the truly “ecumenical” role of the patriarchate, during the first 15 centuries of the Church.

One of Runciman’s great hopes was that the Patriarchate would revert back to it’s historic role as leader of the Orthodox Oecumene, now that there are essentially no more Greeks left in Istanbul.

Best Regards
Dean

I think we’re all on the same page.

Chris

For some reason I thought that because the Patriarch was Ecumenical there would be significant input from all the other Patriarchates and Autocephalous Churches.

Thank you.

First of all, there’s no reason at all that the Ecumenical Patriarch must be Greek…none.

However, the practical reality is that the only bishops who have votes are Greek – so the outcome is pretty certain.

I think many on this forum have speculated, however, that given the influx of Russian visitors (many times the supposed 2000 Greeks) – it’s not out of the question that we could see a Russian EP soon.

For the record, the Armenians have their own patriarch in Istanbul…so that’s not likely. The Syrians are probably isolated to the region around Antioch, and therefore not involved in the Phanar.

Best Regards,
Dean

Even though Christians make up less than 1% of the population in Turkey (specifically 0.13%) this relatively small number is 70% Armenian Orthodox, 10% Syrian Orthodox, 4% Greek Orthodox, and 4% Bulgarian Orthodox.

Source: Demographics of Turkey

Thank you.

We Greeks, have bought into their paradigm of us by seeking shelter in the ghetto, waiting for whatever Christian White Knight is going to come across the horizon saving us.

Fr John, there’s much wisdom in what you write. I’m sure however that much the same could have been written about the strictures placed on Christians during the days of the Caesars (and worse), but the Church did not flinch from doing what she was called by her Lord and Savior to do.

I hate to say this, but perhaps the Protestants are right to a degree, in that the Roman Empire’s legalization of Christianity as (ultimately) the only legal religion caused our bishops to be fat and happy. Sure, we’re good players and at times stragetic thinkers, know the rules, when to show ’em and when to fold ’em, etc. when dealing with the state and all, but I can’t help but think that in many cases, we’ve lost our first love. This accommodation to the Turks, whether the bishops will be “citizens” or “tourists” or whatever is a far cry from the bishops that existed in the first 500 years of the Church, many of whom went gladly to their deaths in the arena.

Harry’s got a point or three when he harps incessantly on the “never married” crowd of current bishops and bishops-in-waiting. There simply is no comparison between these soft men who are “greeted in the marketplace” and the likes of Ss Ignatius of Antioch, Basil of Caesarea, and Augustine of Hippo. The Lord in His mercy however has not forgotten us and in the present age has shown us what real bishops and priests should look like: Tikhon, Maximovitch, Kochurov, and the countless thousands who perished in the Gulag, among others.

I think the Turks, formely Americans, who might yet be dual citizens and show up for synod meetings in Istanbul, then leave, will be treated as any other tourist in Turkey. I doubt they’ll be subject to anything much as they’ll be living amid tourists in those hotels and so on.

When they come back and they explain they are Metropolitans of Chicago, Atlanta and Boston and whatnot, and are citizens of Turkey– I don’t think they’ll do very well when they ask for folk to please give generously. But they all voted for the extra special overseas charter and I’m sure they enjoy it. Mysterious are the ways of the ordained young never married.

Of course if they actually wanted to attract people in Turkey they would ordain senior married clergy to be bishops. So the Imam needs to do more than point and say “look who they work for (wink, wink)” But, instead they do these distortions and reach over oceans to have bishops. Violate to total shreds the canons having to do with being local and managing local things– but keep the one about only young never marrieds as bishops. Sure. Wink WInk.

I think Kemal Ataturk was thinking along the same lines when he made the fez a crime and pushed laikizm onto the unwilling masses of Turks. I found modern seculars in Izmir are fully behind the Kemalist message and despise Islamism. They like Leonard Cohen, for crying out loud! But the yokels from the villages that pour daily into the big city banlieux have ruined the progressive demographic of Turkish coastal cities. It was their votes that brought Erdogan to power. He doesn’t seem to be in step with the Kemalist teaching.

Since I lived in Izmir some 20 years ago, a sea change has occurred in Turkey. Before, the Army would have stepped on the neck of any Islamists trying to come to power. I m surprised that it has not happened yet, but most likely Saudi money has influenced the younger generation who heeded the muezzin’s call and now run the army, it seems.

I met a progressive student who was of Alevi background and knew the taste of the police’s wooden baton. He told me how thepolice chiefs were mostly members of Bektashi brotherhoods and regularly conducted suppression of students based on religious identity. If one was a Jehovah’s Witness, for example, he could expect to be beaten whenever rounded up in an unprokoved raid or ID check.

We in the west know next to nothing about the currents in Turkish society and officialdom; The Phanariots are intimately familiar with the strange dark world of Post-Ottoman Turkey but rarely make a peep and are not about to educate us on their own prison’s hellish rules. As Americans, we are as it were raised by a kind mother who protects her children from the cruelty of the mean old world. Phanariots know the rules of the Turks’ games and play them as best they can. How can foreign bishops function in Turkey? It’s one thing for old worlders to try to deal with America, but for Americans to play Ankara’s game? I think they would trump them in two moves.

George,

I think that as the possibilities of modern life reach the rural backwaters, and people start to regard Islam as a choice and not ‘they’ll actually kill me unless I go along’, fatalistic Islam will have a much harder time retaining anyone on a good day than Christianity on a bad day.

Modernization will free women from the imposed physical burdens taking all their day for the most basic necessities. They quite rightly won’t like living life as one step above other property, and the men who see with their eyes and not lower down will recognize wasting brainpower like that isn’t a way to be competitive in the world.

Of course, this could ultimately backfire on them. We could get an EP in the future who is a resolute Christian preacher, who takes his diocesan duties seriously and takes the Gospel to the inhabitants of Turkey. If that happens, the radical Islamists will rue the day that they didn’t extinguish the phanariote flame once and for all.

I know the EP is making some awful decisions that are really hurting our future here, and who knows whether we’ll recover. But just from the perspective of the Turks offering survival when they didn’t have to do it, right at the end of their program to oppress people from other places right out of the population, they didn’t want another echo of the Armenian catastrophe on their national record. So, good for them, really.