Archim. Michael
Okay, I understand the context of your previous post better now. Thank you.
Very sadly, the ecumenical Patriarch is unlikely to want to go and unlikely to be pushed to, either. There is among the 'chattering' classes (if one may call them that) of the Church a marked propensity for indulging in 'flirtations' with the heterodox. This is very different from enjoying friendship as good neighbours. Indeed a friendly demeanour accompanied by 'strict' boundaries on matters of faith, worship and church discipline would evoke questions and enquiry from those outside. Some would dismiss us, others would question and wonder, and some would see our staunch witness for what it would be; a missionary one.
Sadly too, among some Christian Orthodox being in 'communion' with the present incumbent of the Oecumenical Throne is THE benchmark of Orthodoxy. That this position appears to take no account of history
among other things seems not to occur to them.
The apologists often offer something that might be called THE SEIGE DEFENCE. This runs along the lines here is a tiny Christian community living among 100 million moslems. Being cordial and publicly engaged or aligned with the Papacy acts as a restraint on any Turkish administration. Again they take no account of history, which has a least two different lessons to offer. The first being the Turks actually were a bulwark against the machinations of the Papacy at times in the past. Second, even Apostolic churches decline and disappear. Look around Turkey and how many of her Apostolic churches remain only as memories and names in the New Testament, all of them. It would be better for the Phanar to become a memory of faithfulness to Orthodoxy than for it to continue only because it had betrayed the faith for Rome in order to secure temporal survival.
The present Turkish state has long hankered after joining the European Union (EU). Any violation of the rights of the EP or the Phanar or the Christian Orthodox minority will blow any hopes Turkey has clean out of the water. Not that one should be too quick to salute the EU. Having cobbled together an impenetrable constitution the EU elders cannot bring themselves to acknowledge Christianity's role in European identity. Indeed it may be that the EU may truly become air to its forerunner, Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire. A kingdom that was neither Roman nor holy, but that is perhaps another matter.