Turkey's Policy

ANKARA, Turkey: A Turkish court on Tuesday ruled that the Istanbul-based Orthodox Patriarch is not the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, and is only the head of the local Greek Orthodox community.

The court's decision, however, has no impact on his status outside Turkey. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is the internationally recognized spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox.

The court's verdict could help strengthen the Turkish government's position in disputing the patriarch's global role. The government has long sought to contain Bartholomew's influence, and objects to the use of title "ecumenical" or universal.

Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country that is seeking European Union membership, has long kept close tabs on the patriarch, suspicious of his close ties with Turkey's traditional regional rival Greece and other predominantly Orthodox countries.

The Patriarchate's spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

The ruling was included in an appeals court verdict that upheld a lower court's decision acquitting Bartholomew of charges of illegally barring a Bulgarian priest from conducting religious services. The court also upheld the acquittals of other top church leaders on the same charges.

Bartholomew, who is a Turkish citizen and an ethnic Greek, has spiritual authority over the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians and directly controls several Greek Orthodox churches around the world, including the United States.

Turkish officials however, reject any Vatican-like status for the Patriarch and says he is the religious head of the Greek community of around 3,000.

"The Patriarchate, which was allowed to remain on Turkish soil, is subject to Turkish laws," the appeals court argued. "There is no legal basis for the claims that the Patriarchate is ecumenical." The court said Turkey could not give "special status" to any of its minority groups.

The Patriarchate dates from the Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, today's Istanbul, in 1453.

The charges against Bartholomew and 12 senior clerics were first filed in 2002, by the head of a Bulgarian Church Foundation, who argued that Bartholomew had no authority to dismiss Kostantin Kostov, the Bulgarian priest.

The Bulgarian foundation had claimed the priest was punished after he refused to refer to Bartholomew in prayers and refused to conduct religious services and issue baptism and marriage documents in Greek.

In Athens, the Greek Foreign Ministry said the court decision would not change the Christians' perception of the Patriarch.

"The ecumenical dimension of the Patriarchate of Constantinople is based on international treaties, the sacred regulations of Orthodoxy, on history and Church tradition," ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos said.

"But, above all, recognition of the Ecumenical Patriarch as a spiritual leader is — and has been for centuries — deeply rooted in the conscience of hundreds of millions of Christians, Orthodox or not, worldwide."

Bartholomew went about his business Tuesday regardless of the ruling, meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for talks that included the state of Orthodox churches in Ukraine.

Yushchenko was in Istanbul to attend a regional leaders' meeting. Orthodox churches were all under the Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet times but became divided after independence.

"I hope that our unity can be a reality not only in Ukraine but in all corners of the world," the Anatolia news agency quoted Bartholomew as saying after the meeting.

The Patriarch of Constantinople has expressed his “profound sorrow” at a sentence which June 26 contested the ecumenical right of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, defining it as a Turkish body responsible for the worship of the Greek orthodox minority in the country. According to the Court, Bartholomew I cannot bear the title “Ecumenical Patriarch” for the Orthodox world. Religious affairs experts in Turkey describe it as a “political” verdict, which raises “concerns” for the fate of religious minorities in the country.

In a statement published yesterday the Patriarchate clarified that “the primacy of the Patriarchate has been an honorary, spiritual and historical orthodox title for over 17 centuries. In the Christian Orthodox world the primacy establishes the hierarchy and expresses a pure religious state, this has theological relevance”.

The Court sentence reaffirms a long established approach to the Patriarchate, the aim to downsize its role and its authority. Diplomats note that this position is contradictory for a country which has placed the European dimension as a milestone since its foundation. However, what greatly worries these analysts is the context in which the verdict came about. The court was called to examine the case of a Turkish Orthodox priest of Bulgarian origins, who the Holy Synod had removed from office, because of an “unfitting and inadequate behaviour”. In the sentencing – experts note – the Supreme Court came down on the side of the Patriarchate, but at the same time used the opportunity to pass down a political judgement on the juridical state of the Patriarchate.

The “primacy” feared by authorities and public opinion

In order to justify its verdict the Court turned to the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, which classified the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a religious minority rather than “ecumenical”. In Orthodoxy each Church is autonomous for jurisdiction, but the Patriarch of Constantinople has long covered a role “primus inter pares”, enforced by the historical value of the Church of the ancient eastern Christian capital. The judges then clarified that, while it has the right to remain on Turkish soil, the Patriarchate “is subject to Turkish law”, while Turkey cannot give “special status” to the minority who live there. The Orthodox and Catholic communities continue to lack juridical weight, the ministers of worship and bishops are still not recognised, seminaries remain closed and the Patriarch must be by law a Turkish citizen. The qualifying “ecumenical” linked to the Patriarchate irritates some political groups in Turkey as well as some sectors of public opinion who accuse the Fanar of wanting to build a foreign enclave in the country, or create extra-territorial rights similar to those enjoyed by Vatican City. Accusations which the Patriarchate has repeatedly denied, asking instead that is basic rights be recognised.

“Dangerous” precedent

The Supreme Court sentencing is an alarm bell given the precedents. In 1947 the same Court contested the right to property of minority religious foundations, as was set out by a 1933 ruling. That ruling legalized all of the properties bought to that date and allowed for the acquisition of new properties. With the 1947 sentence religious foundations were arbitrarily stripped of all property bought after 1933.

Patriarchate follow. The Turkish government continues and we do not raise our concerns, the Ecumenical Patriarchate will be facing Institutional Genocide

• Since 2002, the Turkish government has confiscated 75% of the 1,747 Ecumenical Patriarchate’s properties, including an orphanage the Church has held since 1902. Turkey suddenly put a 42% tax, retroactive to 1999, on the Christian Churches’ Balukli Hospital, which treats 30-40,000 patients a year of which 99% are Muslim and Turkish citizens.

• In December 2004, the government of Turkey reversed its commitment to President George Bush to reopen the Theological School at Halki. By doing so, they kept the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey’s ominous “catch 22” – requiring that the Ecumenical Patriarch be a Turkish citizen while keeping Turkish citizens from qualifying. This assures the governmental–extinction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Not reopening the Theological School, guarantees that none of the remaining 2,000 Turkish citizens who are Orthodox (reduced from hundreds-of-thousands by official discrimination) can become clergy and, more importantly, Ecumenical Patriarch.

• The Turkish government prevents the Orthodox Christian Church from selecting any canonically eligible bishop throughout the world from becoming the Ecumenical Patriarch by requiring Turkish citizenship and other restrictions.

• The Turkish government refuses to recognize the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a bona fide legal entity, a critical issue since without a legal personality it cannot own property and properly function as a religious institution. The Prime Minister of Turkey, in late 2004, reversed his commitment to recognize the Ecumenical Patriarch as the head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, instead of just a simple, local Orthodox clergyman. The Prime Minister also insists on keeping the authority to veto the Patriarchal Holy Synod’s selection of Ecumenical Patriarch.

A. Turkey’s restrictive attitude is gradually running counter to tendencies in the world. The tendency that appeared after the interpretation of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee in the 1990s is not to ask the country whether or not there is a minority in it, and if there are “groups, which have ethnic, linguistic and religious differences and regard this difference as inseparable part of their identity,” to recognize that there is minority in that country. To give minority status to them completely falls within the nation-state’s sphere of authority.

Here we must say that the European Union (EU) never demands that Turkey give different cultural groups minority status or rights. It only asks Turkey to equally treat all citizens who are culturally different. This point must be understood very well.

B. Turkey does not fully implement the Lausanne Treaty and this is why it violates some clauses of this founder treaty. The rights given to non-Muslims are not fully implemented. Also, these rights are given to three big minority groups only (Armenians, Jews, Greeks) and not given to other non-Muslims (for example; the right of education for Suriyanis in Article 40), and also the state ignores the Rights given to other non-Muslims without international protection in the third part of the Lausanne Treaty. The implementation, which is regarded as the “1936 Declaration” in the press, can be shown as an example of the former, and Article 39/4 can be shown as an example of the latter. This article gives all Turkish citizens the right to “use the language of their choice in trade, open-closed meetings and any kind of mass media.” The only exception of this use is in civil offices. Because of the fact that nobody uses a language of his/her choice on radios and TVs, the Third Harmonization Package went into effect on August 3, 2002 but it could not be implemented and the Seventh Package went into effect on July 30, 2003. At the end of November 2003, the Turkish Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) prepared regulations on this issue. It included time and space restrictions here. But for example, if Article 3 of the Lausanne Treaty were implemented, debates caused by broadcasts in Kurdish and keep Turkey busy needlessly, will end. Such a situation will benefit Turkey in four ways:

1) It is definite that Turkey will have to abandon the “Interpretation of the Declaration,” which is already not useful. It is very important for the concept of national sovereignity if it does it of its own accord, not by EU pressure, this will be done when it implements clauses of the Lausanne Treaty, which is its own founding agreement.

2) It is unavoidable that one day everyone will be able to broadcast in every language. In the transition to this process, it will make things easier for the state to implement the clauses of the Lausanne Treaty rather than put an effort into making new, debatable laws.

3) It is a clear necessity that all citizens must be given as many extensive rights as possible in order to not create a minority under international protection in Turkey and this article mentions all “Turkish Republican citizens.”

4) There is no doubt that it will be very useful for unity in the country if Turkey treats its own people more humanely. Because a country made up of “obligatory citizens” is a weak one. To make people happy and “volunteer citizens” will enpower the state. The state where citizens fear the state the least, is one in which its citizens have been given their rights.

Turkish court rejects ecumenical status of Istanbul-based Orthodox Patriarchate

Patriarch expresses concerns over Turkey

The Patriarch of Constantinople expressed "concerns" over Turkish court verdict: the court, intervening in religious affairs, ruled that he is a Turkish citizen and cannot bear the title "Ecumenical Patriarch".

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