www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Despite EU pressure, Halki Theological School remains shut

Seminary stays shut as Turkey bucks EU pressure

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

HEYBELIADA, Turkey, Oct 4 (Reuters ) - The blackboards are clean, desks dusted and library books neatly ranged. The Greek Orthodox seminary on this idyllic island off Istanbul is ready and waiting to take in new student priests.

But this autumn, as for the past 35 years, Halki seminary remains shut, despite pressure on Turkey to reopen it to qualify for European Union membership. Visitors reaching the hilltop retreat by horse-drawn carriage find the place empty.

The 162-year-old seminary, a barometer of religious freedom in secular Turkey, which has a Muslim majority, seemed close to revival as Ankara debated changing a law that shut it in 1971.

But the Islamist-rooted government had to pull a proposed change in the law when the secular-minded opposition charged it would change the status of religious minorities in Turkey.

"The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the focal point of the Orthodox world, cannot even educate its own clergy," complained Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians.

"There would be no problem if the political will to reopen the school were there," he said, "but unfortunately, for the moment, it is missing."

The seminary is caught in a tangled web of conflicting concerns. The European Union has made its reopening a litmus test of Ankara's commitment to religious freedom.

Turkey, the only rigorously secular state in the Muslim world, argues it cannot reopen Halki without letting Islamist groups launch their own schools that could radicalize local Muslims.

Ankara is also wary of any step that might strengthen the Ecumenical Patriarchate and lead to a kind of "Orthodox Vatican" in Istanbul, which was the Byzantine capital of Constantinople until the Ottoman Turks conquered it in 1453.

"What's ultimately at stake is the ecumenical character of the Ecumenical Patriarchate," said Metropolitan Apostolos, abbot of the Halki monastery and head of the empty school.

FRESH BLOOD FROM ABROAD

Before it closed, Halki buzzed with about 125 students, mostly from Turkey and Greece but also from such unexpected places as Ethiopia and Britain.

It was often the first step to higher office in Orthodox churches in Turkey, Greece and Egypt -- over the years, 330 of its 950 graduates became bishops, archbishops or patriarchs.

The current law says students must be Turkish citizens, a severe restriction at a time when priestly vocations have waned and death and emigration have reduced the once-large ethnic Greek population in Istanbul to about 3,000.

The dwindling pool of potential priests has also thinned out the ranks of theologians to help the Ecumenical Patriarchate conduct dialogue with other Christian denominations, Muslims and Jews, Bartholomew told visiting journalists in Istanbul.

"Most students and teachers would have to come from abroad," said Apostolos as he showed visitors the monastery's sheep, goats and chickens. "We have always been an ecumenical school. Catholics and Protestants could study here too."

Halki seminary opened in 1844 at a monastery founded on the island in the ninth century. Meant to supply priests for the Ottoman Empire's Greek minority, it expanded to the point where it had to open a large new building in 1896.

Set amid cool pines and palm trees, the seminary has the high ceilings, wide halls and well-worn wooden desks of schools built before computers and air conditioning.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

Apart from new paint and some aluminum window frames, little seems to have changed since 1971, when Ankara shut university-level religious schools, including Muslim ones.

"We do everything needed to maintain the building," Apostolos, one of four monks here, said in the chandeliered reception hall amid portraits of his predecessors.

In the library, a treasure trove of 60,000 books dating back to the 15th century, Father Dorotheos has installed the first of the glass-fronted cabinets meant to protect the collection now stacked on rough wooden shelves.

"The library is not dead even though the school is not functioning," he insisted as he showed off books in Greek, Turkish, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

The library, which dates back to the monastery's founding, lost many valuable manuscripts to marauding Crusaders in the early 13th century. "They can be found now in libraries and museums across Europe," he said sadly.

But bishops and theologians often donate their personal book collections, so it needs no budget to keep its shelves full -- one volume -- "Dogma and Preaching" from 1973 -- by the then Father Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.

THIRD-CLASS CITIZENS

Responding to European Union pressure, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government produced a reform package that included an article allowing foreign students to study at schools run by ethnic minorities -- an indirect green light to reopen Halki.

Pressed by the opposition, it withdrew that part of the package and ruled out changing the seminary's status. "We, as the government, have no such plan," Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said to reassure critics.

Apostolos said the Orthodox Church, which was allowed to hold summer seminars at Halki from 1993 to 1998, seemed to be under more pressure recently despite EU pressure on Ankara to reform and several church properties had been confiscated.

"We are not second-class citizens here, we're third-class," he said bitterly. "The minorities had more freedom to practice their religion in the Ottoman Empire."

Islam considers itself to be not only superior to Christianity and Judaism but taking their place. As far as they are concerned Christianity is not only inferior to and in error but redundant and unnecessary. For those dull enough to remain Christian there is the Dhimmi accomodations. One may remain Christian if: 1. The Christian pays the Jizya and a series of other taxes; 2. Never tries to marry a Muslim woman; 3. Agrees to not have an equal status in courts with a Muslim; 4. Prefereably never looks a Muslim in the eyes; 5. Never builds a Church as high as a mosque nor near a mosque; etc., etc., ad infinitum. If a Chrstian is unwilling to live under such limitations he can be arrested and treated as a slave or killed. Turkey follows this with a modicum of civility. Saudi Arabia with less civility and Sudan as it is expected to be followed.

Jesus said, "You will be beaten and driven from the synagogue...persecuted and even killed and they will think they are doing God a favor..In this world you have tribulation but have courage I have overcome the world already" John 16

Seems as if Jesus knew what He was talking about.

CDL

Oy. Never thought I'd be booing a country not joining the EU.

Is anybody honestly surprised?

Fr. Serge

From all that has occurred, I can't help but feel that Turkey has an agenda that goes back to the time of the Treaty of Lausanne. It strikes me funny that Turkey would want it's minority to remain in Greek Thrace in excange for the Patriarch to remain in Turkey. Turkey allowed other Turks to be exchanged for the Greeks forced out in 1923, so why keep the Turks in Thrace? Unless of course, Thrace was a bridge to rebuilding it's empire.

I feel that it's an agenda, because the 25,000 Turks, or rather Muslim Greeks in Thrace are now over 100,000 and Turkey is complaining that they are not being given minority rights. In actuality, Turkey is using it as a ruse to start pressuring Greece as well as divert the EU from it's problems. The Muslim Greeks in Thrace have been given rights probably way above any other minority group in Europe.

In 1923 the Greeks were forcefully expelled from the city of Smyrna, (now Ismir), and the coast of Asia Minor. The Greeks were in the majority in that part of the world, much in the same way they were in Northern Cyprus. At the time, Istanbul was occupied by allied troops, and so the Greek, or rather Romans, were allowed to remain. Again they were in the majority, but they gradually began to leave.

During the pogroms of the fifties and sixties, the Greeks were expelled from that great city, so that now only 3,000 elderly remain. I say there is an agenda there, since someone has to be a Turkish citizen in order to become Patriarch, there is no way that can come about.

Now some will say, why doesn't the Patriarch leave. The problem seems to be that he will not be allowed to take anything with him. All the books and manuscripts will remain in Turkey.

I can't help but wonder why Turkey does this. Certainly the manuscripts and religious items mean nothing to a Muslim nation, so I can't help but feel she wants some kind of monetary or maybe even territorial gain that would be well above and beyond what the Greek nation could afford.

Now to understand Turkey's position in all this ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc., we have to realize that Turkey was involved in a great many wars at the beginning of the last century. She kept losing land, and the only way Turkey felt it could keep some space for itself, was to eliminate the inhabitants. Thus the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Armenians, and later on the Greeks of the Pontus, and Asia Minor....and today the Kurds.

When Turkey entered WW I and allied itself with Germany, it was again forced to give up land when Germany lost the war. England and France drew up lines in the sand and carved out Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq...maybe Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Kuwait. I'm not sure about all this. Maybe Jordan and Palestine were really Transjordan, I don't know. The Kurds which consist of about twenty million in Turkey, ten million in Iraq and ten million in Iran, were not given their own country since Lawrence of Arabia loved the Arabs and wanted them to have the oil. :rolleyes:

Well it doesn't matter. Turkey has big problems with the EU. It refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide, and will not open ports to Cyprus unless the occupied part of Cyprus is recognized as a separate nation. Actually Turkey has threatened France that it will stop all commerce with it unless it removes the law that states not recognizing the Armenian genocide is a criminal offense. No one though wants to isolate Turkey because who knows what it will do. We have given it quite an arsenal, so the EU is working on a special status for it.

Zenovia

The Turkish agenda predates the Treaty of Lausanne.

We should also be aware of the bizarre Turkish laws on the ownership of church buildings, to say nothing of other properties which legitimately belong to Christian Churches.

The matter of manuscripts, icons, relics and so forth is not the only reason for the Patriarch to remain in Constantinople. The Turkish government keeps the "Turkish Orthodox Patriarch" in suspended animation, so to speak, in Eminonu, so that when the Ecumenical Patriarch finally concedes defeat and moves out of Turkey, the government can install their fictitious pupper Patriarch in the Phanar and claim that he is the real Ecumenical Patriarch. Meanwhile this pseudo-Patriarch holds no religious services and heads a Church that no one is allowed to join!

Then there are the lovely Turkish sumptuary laws - which mysteriously apply to Christians but not to Mohammedans. It is illegal for a priest to wear even a plastic clergy-collar in Turkey outside of private Church property - but for some strange reason the mullahs can go around in full Mohammedan gear. [That is also supposedly illegal, but the Turks wouldn't dream of enforcing this if the offender is a Mohammedan.]

This goes to unbelievable lengths. I was once staying with some bishops and other clergy at a hotel in Taksim. We took taxis directly to the Patriarchate, and stepped out of the taxis to go straight into the Patriarchate - we couldn't possibly have been so much as one meter from the entrance to the Patriarchate. Nevertheless, the Turkish authorities lodged a complaint with the Patriarchate that we had been "on the street" dressed as clergy!

And to think that we used to complain about the USSR.

Fr. Serge

Dear Father Serge,

I have never heard of this before. Please elaborate.

Thank you!

In Christ,
Alice

Yes Alice,

You may want to see if you can google and find "Turkish Orthodox Church". I know that in the fifties and sixties the Turkish government was actively supporting this movement, but were it has gone since I have no idea. I do know that at one time, the alleged head of the church movement was a married priest and patriarch. The book I have describing this movement is out on loan at the moment.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Alice,

I just did a quick search and this is the first link that came up. Wikipedia Article [en.wikipedia.org]

I am sure there is more of a history, etc. elsewhere.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

PS I am also have found a little more involved article on the subject. Papa Eftim [greece.org]

The "Turkish Orthodox Church" was created by Ataturk, with the thought that it might come in handy. It was never anything resembling a mass movement, but he managed to raise a handful or two of disgruntled Orthodox and held out the bait of allowing some Greeks to remain in their homes and continue to be Orthodox if they would declare themselves to be "Orthodox Turks" and join this strange community.

That did not work; most of the Orthodox inhabitants of what is now Turkey had no interest in any such project, and most Turks were equally uninterested. Ataturk gave it up as a bad job and expelled the Orthodox from everyplace except Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos. But he made some provisions for his "Turkish Orthodox" and kept Papa Eftim and his familly on some sort of slender income, with three churches in Eminonu. Since almost nobody attended these churches, as time passed one of them was rented out to the non-Chalcedonian (we're not supposed to say "Monophysite") Syrians, a second church is kept locked most of the time, and the third is the "Patriarchal cathedral". No services are held in this church, but anyone can walk in, pray, light candles and even take some postcards. The catch is that the candles and postcards are free and it is not possible to make any sort of donation to the place (because the government does not want anyone else to have the slightest claim to membership). The current Patriarch is Papa Eftim's grandson. He functions as the concierge of the church and assures you that you are welcome to go in but that there are no services just now.
Every once in a while the government gets this man out of mothballs to entertain Turkic peoples from places like Russia who are Orthodox by religion but whom the Turks are encouraging with scholarships and the like. That's how I encountered the whole thing; I wandered in off the street to look at the church and before I knew it I was invited to dinner (good food, thanks to a Greek caterer!) with a good-sized group of Gagauz students from a couple of universities. Since I could converse with the students in Russia, I had an enjoyable time with them. They had no very clear idea of just who this Patriarch was, but a good dinner is a good dinner and, like most university students, they did not often have the chance to eat that well!

I also met the Patriarch's daughter (!), who speaks good English and was quite courteous. But, if you will excuse the expression, the whole thing had an air of "Alice in Wonderland", with a touch of Mary Poppins.

Fr. Serge