Patriarch Asks Turkey to End Stalemate Over Shuttered Seminary By: Yasemin Çongar for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on August 19. Clad in ceremonial attire complete with a jeweled crown and the patriarchal crozier in one hand, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stood, Aug. 15, on the terrace of the Sumela Monastery and prayed. His face was damp with sweat and his silk white robe with powder-blue patterns of the cross shimmered under the noon sun. I was not there, but as I watched Greece’s TV 4E livestreaming the Divine Liturgy from Turkey’s northern province of Trabzon, I could feel the heat of the moment. While the Biblical verses the patriarch recited in classical Greek sounded ethereal, the symbolism of the service, which was also attended by grim-faced government representatives in grey suits, could not have been more mundane. Keen on verbally demoting Bartholomew’s mandate to that of a neighborhood priest’s, Turkish officials still refer to him as “the Fener Greek Patriarch,” but the ecumenical leader of the 300 million-member Orthodox Christian Church has indeed come a long way in his very mundane struggle for recognition in Turkey. Read more: al-monitor/pulse/originals/2013/08/halki-island-orthodox-church-turkey.html#ixzz2cUJ1GDFN
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 06:22:48 +0000
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