A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 36 - Tuesday, September 7th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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Turks Clash With Police In Anti-Christian Protest DOW JONES NEWSWIRES ISTANBUL (AP)--Police on Sunday clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing nationalist Turks who staged a protest outside the seat of the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians. The protesters burnt an effigy of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, whom far-right groups accuse of working against Turkish interests. The demonstrators ignored calls for them to disperse, broke paving stones and hurled them at police, Anatolia news agency reported. Police used pepper spray on the demonstrators and pursued some of them down side streets, televisions station NTV said. It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured in Sunday's scuffles, but NTV said some cars in the area were damaged. The group staged the demonstration to call on the Ecumenical Patriarchate to reopen a gate that has remained shut for more than 180 years in respect of Patriarch Gregory V, who was accused of conspiring against the Ottoman Empire and was hanged from it in 1821. The nationalists see the Patriarchate's refusal to reopen the gate, which is the main entrance to the complex, as a sign of its "anti-Turkish" sentiment. Nationalist groups have dubbed the entrance "the gate of hatred." The patriarchate says the gate was welded shut and cannot be reopened. The protest came as the Patriarchate seeks to reopen a Greek Orthodox seminary closed in 1971, which trained generations of church leaders, including Bartholomew, and is seen as crucial for the education of future leaders. Members of Turkey's government have expressed support for the proposal, which nationalists strongly oppose. Bartholomew has spiritual authority over the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians and directly controls several Greek Orthodox churches around the world, including the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Turkey only recognizes the patriarch as the religious head of the Greek community in Turkey. Although few Greek Orthodox Christians remain in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, the Patriarchate is still based in Istanbul. It dates from the
Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed
when the Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the city
in 1453. Istanbul, then called Constantinople, was
the capital of the Byzantine Empire. |
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