www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Problems with Ecumenical Patriarchate

My greetings and my respect to all. I'm new here and because I'm still trying to find my way around I would like you to forgive me if this subject is not in the correct place. I don't know how many you have heard or watched on TV about this subject. The things with the Ecomenical Patriarch Vartholomeos are not going so well in Turkey. Wherever the Patriarch goes, in different and usually abandoned byzantine churches inside Turkey, in order the words of Evangellion to be told once again to these holy places, a group of Turk extremists (called "the grey wolves") follow him in order to stop him from doing the ceremony. They do that again and again in the last months and this year they didn't even want to allow the church of Constantinople to do the hollyness of the water in Vosporos. The situation is extremely bad. One more problem is that Turkey is slowly taking away the properties of the Patriarchate (churches, monasteries, schools). And of course not to mention about the school of Chalki which, by decision of the Turkish goverment is still closed for so many years now. As it is known an Ecomenical Patriarch can be someone only if he is a Turkish citizen and has graduaded from the school of Chalki. Turkey by closing the school of Chalki hopes that there will be no one left in a few years from now to become a Patriarch and that it will get rid of him.
My apologies for my English. It would be much easier for me to express myself in Greek.

Welcome Houfou!

This is terrible news. We should pray for His Beatitude's safety if he is being threatened.

Thank you for posting this. Prayers for His Beatitude's safety and courage against Islamic fanaticism! Prayers for the conversion of the heathen as well!

Gordo

Dear Houfou,

Actually, when persecution of minorities occur, it is usually a convenient way to get rid of those whose existance will cause problems. Yet still maintain that it is not the national policy, but a dissident group. I have seen it before in Muslim countries.

Turkey wants to enter the EU, yet if she does, she must comply with the laws regarding religious freedom. By removing the Patriarch and all Christians now, before she becomes a member, the question of the Patriarchate will not become an issue. She knows what she's doing.

Turkey this way will be able to infiltrate all of Europe with her people, yet she herself will remain a pure Muslim nation. Forgeting her pretensions of being a secular nation, I believe she is in reality a Muslim culture with a government that is a military democracy.

I think Turkey is highly frustrated. She has found that she cannot enter the northern part of Iraq and claim the Kurdish oil wells, and Greece refuses to give her the sea rights to drill where she does not belong. I say that if one should wonder why a Turkish and Greek jet collided in the Aegean.

That goes on every year. The Turkish jets fly illegally over Greek air space, and the Greek jets scramble to send them back. My annoyance is that the BBC stated the incident as being 'disputed' air space. Disputed by who? Only Turkey is claiming something which no other nation in the world has claimed. But that's Turkey for you!

Prayers are needed for the situation there, as well as for enlightement and guidance on her entrance to the EU. The belief is that if she enters she might change...but frankly, I highly doubt it. :rolleyes:

Zenovia

Re: Turkey...why Zenovia, are you saying that a leopard doesn't change its spots!?! :p

Dear Houfou,

Christos Anesti!

Welcome to the forum!

As a person of Greek extraction, I know all too well the hardships that the Ecumenical Patriarch faces in Turkey.

May our Lord God watch over him, may our Lady Theotokos protect him with her mantle of protection, and may this ancient witness of the first Church stay alive and well in the queen city of Byzantium-- Constantinoupolis.

I think that the visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict to Constantinople will give a show of Christian support, and that the Turks and the Muslims will take notice.

That is why I firmly believe that we need spiritual unity of the ancient Patriarchs of the undivided Church soon! A house divided against itself will fall. There is strength in brotherhood and unity...

In the Risen Christ,
Alice

P.S. Your English is excellent, and you more than adequately express yourself in it!

Alice,
Yes you areright and hit the nail right on the head.
That they may be one that the world may believe that You have sent me!"
Thus the importance for unity between the East and West.
Hopefully we can put aside the silly bickering of the past and put on the new nature of Christ in unity and holiness of truth.
Stephanos I

Heresy was punished, Troy was avenged...

I did not say that. I just agree with that.

I remember when Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. The Mass Media was linking him to the "Grey Wolves" in Turkey, as well as to KGB via Bulgarian connections. Interesting.

Dn. Robert

I wonder if those who bother his holiness have ever given any consideration that these various churches may have been the places where their own ancestors once worshipped.

Turkey would have to be the best example of a very slow but steady strangulation of the Church. It is unrelenting in it's grip, no vice or anaconda has a grip like the secula Turkish Republic, they at least let go.

In Jesus name may the Turkish government be bound from performing any action which may hinder the Orthodox Faith. May their hearts be converted to the true and living God. Amen and Amen!
Stephanos I
(Does that sound too protestant? )

Dear Father Stephanos,

Amen to your beatiful and profound prayer. Thank you.

With respect in Christ,
Alice

No it doesn't sound any protestand. This is want we want. It doesn't matter my personal oppinion on their religion, islam. I want peace like everyone and I respect their right to believe to whatever they wish as long as they do not threat my religion. The Turkish goverment officially does not support such actions but it is showing tolerance about these actions. Recently even a hand grenade was found on the roof of the patriarchate in Fanari, Constantinople. Thanks God it didn't explode and the turkish police took it away. These extremists a few months ago even did a "theatrical play" in Smirni, with someone who was dressed as the Patriarch getting in a boat leaving from the harbour, with them yelling "Priest leave from Turkey" and "Allah is great. His Holliness responded to this and others with peace and a statement like "We are here before others arrived". A small story (I hope i remember it well) is that once a U.S. President had visited the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constaninople. In a friendly conversation the president asked the patriarch about how old was he. The patriarch responded "I am 17 centuries old".

Dear Houfou,

I read yesterday on Ekathemerini, (Greek version of the Herald Tribune), that the situation in the Aegean should be taken to the Hague before some passenger plane gets caught in the Middle. Also it seems that Turkey is having internal political problems, and whenever Turkey has political problems, she becomes aggressive.

What I read, and is very disturbing, is that Greece wanted to take the situation to the Hague in 2003, but Turkey decided then that the situation of Thrace should be taken up at the same time. In other words, she added more to the equation, as she usually does, in order to gain as much as she could. She did this with Cyprus, and wanted the Aegean problem to be solved at the same time. This way she could impose what she wanted in order for her troops to be removed from Cyprus.

There is no situation in Greek Thrace. According to the Treaty of Lausanne, the Patriarch of Constantinople was to remain in Turkey and in exchange, 25,000 Turks would remain living in Thrace. :rolleyes:

Well today, the Turks in Thrace are about 130,000 or more, yet all the Greek Orthodox Christians living in Constantinople were forced out during the pogroms of the 1950's and 1960's. In the mean time, Turkey has a law that in order for someone to become a Patriarch, they have to be a Turkish citizen. Well if there are no more Orthodox in Turkey, who will become the next Patriarch? She works her plans well, and unfortunately, we in the states help her.

I say this, because we in America are the one's pushing for her to enter the E.U., and we are the one's that have established a gas pipe line through her instead of only Russia. It seems that we are following the common Western European policy of perceiving Russia as the enemy, and thereby 'needing' Turkey as an ally. :rolleyes:

What a pity? Had this mentality not been so, Constantinople today would have been Christian. But then again, Turkey always had a strong lobby in Washington, and I can't help but feel she also has the full support of the Jewish lobby.

Zenovia

Zenovia,

You 've spoken the truth. I don't have any more things to say on that. You have said it all and I absolutely agree with you. My oppinion is that Greece should stop being so "friendly" against Turkey and that it should finally say a simple "no". Turkey, if it was possible, would even want to raise the Turkish flag on the Acropolis! We would like to have peace in the area. But not by giving away the holy lands of my country. Neither a single inch. Greece has supported Turkey (a mistake from my point of view - Turkey is not a European country) in order to start the procedures with the European Union but as we can all see it still does not recognise Cyprus neither it respects Orthodoxy. Let's hope for the best in the future (but I honestly don't see it).