A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
|
|
|
| Volume 7 Number 38 - Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
|
• Search Engine
The Orthodox Christian Laity
|
The Orthodox Christian News Service |
|||
ANKARA (Reuters) - Muslim Turkey yesterday invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit in 2006, deftly sidestepping a diplomatic conundrum that had risked embarrassing Ankara shortly before the start of its EU entry talks. Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, the Turkey-based head of the world’s 300-million-strong Orthodox Church, recently invited Benedict to Istanbul on Nov. 30 for St Andrew’s Feast Day and the Vatican has indicated the pontiff’s desire to accept. But Turkish authorities were uncomfortable with such timing, not least because Benedict said before becoming pope that he opposed Turkey’s EU bid. Ankara starts its EU talks on Oct. 3. “The president... has invited Pope Benedict XVI on an official visit to Turkey in 2006,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “(He will be able to) observe the current inter-cultural environment of tolerance in Turkey, which is based on basic individual freedoms, and to contribute to efforts to build a global dialogue between religions,” it said. Benedict is keen to improve ties with the Eastern churches as part of his drive to strengthen Christian unity, but the patriarch’s invitation had put Ankara in an awkward position. To oppose the visit would have hurt Turkey’s image in Europe, especially in Catholic countries that are already skeptical about Ankara’s drive to join the EU. But allowing the visit to go ahead so soon after the start of talks carried a high risk of protests by nationalist Turks.
|
|
Home • Archives • Search • Submissions • Support Us |
||
|
Orthodox News, PO BOX 6954 |
