The Orthodox church in Turkey said Tuesday it hoped the visit of Pope Benedict XVI would help convince Ankara to enhance its status and rights of its followers - a tiny minority in this largely Muslim country.
The Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate, seated in Istanbul since Byzantine times, and its head, Bartholomew I, are encountering "some difficulties, to say the least," Archbishop Demetrios of America told a press conference as the pope arrived for a landmark four-day visit.
The archbishop said he hoped scheduled talks between the pope and the patriarch in Istanbul "might help improve the conditions for a solution to these problems." The major issues, he said, were Turkey's refusal to recognise Bartholomew I as ecumenical, or universal, leader of about 250 million Orthodox worshippers across the world and grant his patriarchate legal status.
The Turkish authorities have also closed a theological school on an island off Istanbul, depriving the patriarchate of a means to train clergy, and have confiscated a number of properties from Christian foundations. Expanding the rights of Turkey's Christian minority is also a major demand of the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join.
A recent EU report on Ankara's progress towards membership said "non-Muslim religious communities have no access to legal personality and continue to face restricted property rights," even though freedom of worship is "generally respected." Monsignor Brian Farrell, a senior Vatican official, hinted that the pope would press the issue of Christian rights, including those of a small Catholic community, with the Turkish leadership.
"He would probably wish to say that ... we have to make great efforts to understand each other better and, in a respectful dialogue, find a way forward," Farrell told the same press conference. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul dates from the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, which collapsed in 1453 when the city, then called Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Turks.
Though Ankara does not interfere with its religious functions, it withholds recognition of Bartholomew's ecumenical title, treating him only as the spiritual leader of some 2,000 Orthodox Greeks still living in the country.
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