mehmet ii's ghost still preserving Orthodoxy in Constantinople...sad commentary on wayward Greek elites--BE ROMANS AGAIN OR YOU WILL REMAIN A CONQUERED PEOPLE.
r
AND THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY TO ASSAULT ESPHIGMENOU?!!!
http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6407
Pope misses Orthodox St. Andrew's Day celebrations
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Pope Benedict XVI missed a religious feast in Turkey on Wednesday after Ankara asked him to come at a later date, denying him a chance to pursue his goal of building bridges between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Orthodox nuns listen to a prayer at the ceremony led by the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I during the Feast of St. Andrew at the patriarchal cathedral of St. George in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2005. Bartholomew was joined by Cardinal Walter Kasper and other Roman Catholic clergymen at the Patriarchate in Istanbul, a city that has been home to leading Orthodox holy men since the 4th century.(AP Photo/Osman Orsal)
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Pope Benedict XVI missed a religious feast in Turkey on Wednesday after Ankara asked him to come at a later date, denying him a chance to pursue his goal of building bridges between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
The head of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, had asked Benedict to attend the liturgy marking St. Andrew's Day in a move intended to demonstrate Christian unity.
Benedict accepted the invitation to St. George's Cathedral in Istanbul, but Turkey, apparently believing Bartholomew had overreached himself, then invited the Pope to visit in 2006 instead.
The Vatican has accepted Ankara's invitation, but the Pope's no-show at Wednesday's ceremony underscores the delicate position of the Patriarch and Istanbul's tiny Greek Orthodox community in mainly Muslim but secular Turkey, an EU candidate.
For Turkish nationalists, the Patriarch -- a Turkish citizen of ethnic Greek origin -- is a tool of ancient foe Greece, whom they suspect of wanting to recreate a kind of "mini-Vatican" in the heart of Istanbul, historic cradle of Orthodox Christianity.
For them, Ankara was right to insist the Pope visit Turkey on its own terms, as head of state, not as a religious leader.
But for liberals who want to see Turkey present a more tolerant image to the world, the indirect snub to the world's two pre-eminent Christian leaders is a public relations blunder that has done nothing to help Ankara's European Union entry bid.
"The government acts like a bull in a china shop in such sensitive balancing acts," said Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul's Bahcesehir University.
"We often speak of Turkey as a bridge between diverse religions and civilisations. But to prove our credibility, we have to show this country is not a Sunni Muslim club," he said.
NATIONALIST IRE
Some 99 percent of Turks are Muslims, the majority of them in the mainstream Sunni tradition. Most of Turkey's ancient Christian population -- chiefly Greeks and Armenians -- fled, perished or were exchanged with Greek Muslims in the 1920s.
"The problem is the Patriarch insists on the title of "ecumenical" or universal, but in fact he only represents the 2,000 Greek Orthodox of Istanbul," said Emin Sirin, a member of Turkey's parliament and a vocal critic of the Patriarch.
"We don't want another Vatican in Istanbul," he said.
"Yes, the Pope is welcome in Turkey as head of state. But he first visits Ankara and meets the Turkish president, then he can go to Istanbul and hold a private meeting with the Patriarch. Not the other way round," Sirin told Reuters.
St. Andrew's Day is of special importance to the Orthodox Church because, according to tradition, the apostle was the first to preach the Christian gospel in and around what is now Istanbul in the years after Jesus Christ's death.
As Constantinople, the city later served as the centre of eastern Christianity for centuries until it fell to the Turks in 1453, becoming in turn the capital of the Muslim Ottoman empire.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German like Benedict, represented the Pope at Wednesday's ceremony, which was also attended by clergy from Orthodox countries and by foreign diplomats.
The EU, which began entry talks with Ankara last month, has not commented on the papal visit or the controversy surrounding it, but in its latest progress report it urged Turkey to expand freedoms for non-Muslim religious minorities.
"Alas, at the moment Turkey shows little interest in progress on this front," said one Ankara-based EU diplomat.
The government, which has Islamist roots, and its secular nationalist opponents -- known as Kemalists after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey -- have found common ground in their opposition to the Patriarch, the diplomat said.
"For the (ruling) AK Party, the patriarchate is suspect because it is Christian in a Muslim country. For the Kemalists it is suspect because it is culturally Greek," he said.
"(Prime Minister Tayyip) Erdogan often accuses the EU of being a Christian club which does not want to admit Muslim Turkey... But it is rather Turkey that is acting like a closed Muslim club," the diplomat added.
Complicating matters for Ankara, Pope Benedict is known as an opponent of Turkey's EU membership, arguing that Europe's roots are Christian and that a Muslim country would not fit in. But Patriarch Bartholomew strongly supports the bid.
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