Credit: Wendy R. Sherman / TwitterThe US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman met with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, in Istanbul on Saturday.The Ecumenical Patriarch presented the activities, initiatives as well as priorities of the Orthodox Christian Church, informing the American official of the latest ecclesiastical developments in the region and around…
Elpidophoros Deplores 50th Anniversary of Halki Seminary Closure
” width=”769″>Halki Seminary in Heybeliada, on the island of Halki, off Istanbul, Turkey. Credit: Darwinek/Wikimedia Commons/ CC-BY-SA-3.0
His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America addressed the solemn anniversary of Turkey’s abrupt closure of the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary in 1971, ending the institution’s work of educating generations of clergymen.
Interviewed by Dwight Bashir of the United States Commission on International Freedom (USCIRF), the Archbishop of the Americas made his remarks the on the podcast “USCIRF Spotlight.”
” width=”1080″>His Eminence appeared on the program on the sad occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the closure of the venerable Theological School of Halki in 1971.
ANKARA: A new report released Wednesday follows a trend from the US State Department in criticizing Turkey for restricting the rights of non-Muslim religious groups in the country.
The latest report focused on the challenges non-Muslim religious groups have faced in operating houses of worship, holding board elections for their foundations, and obtaining exemptions from mandatory religion courses in schools, which are in violation of the European Court of Human Rights’ 2013 ruling.
The US also expressed concerns when Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reconverted the historic Chora Church, one of Istanbul’s most celebrated Byzantine buildings, and the famed Hagia Sophia into mosques last summer.
US State Department Slams Turkey on Ecumenical Patriarchate, Hagia Sophia
” width=”696″>US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed reporters on International Religious Freedom Day on Wednesday. Credit: US State Department
The US State Department slammed Turkey on its record on religious freedoms citing the pressures exerted on the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the 2020 International Religious Freedom Report released on Wednesday.
The report said that the Turkish government “continued to restrict efforts of minority religious groups to train their clergy,” and the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary remained closed.
” width=”1080″>It added that it “continued not to recognize Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I as the leader of the world’s approximately 300 million Orthodox Christians, consistent with the government’s stance that there was no legal obligation for it to do so.”
The US State Department’s reports on human right and on religious freedom in Turkey for 2020 may have come at a moment where US-Turkey relations are perhaps the worst ever, but they essentially recapitalutate longstanding problems highlighted in previous annual reports even as they detail the sharply increasing authoritarianism of the Erdogan regime in a sweeping array of political, economic, and social activities.
The report on religious freedom details Ankara’s violations of the religious freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – the Patriarch is the first-ranking bishop for 300mn Orthodox Christians worldwide – including the decades-long closure of the Halki seminary but this year it includes criticism of Erdogan’s decision to turn the Byzantine churches that have for decades been museums – Hagia Sophia and the Monastery of Hora (Kahriye) into mosques.