Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: Turkey to reopen Orthodox school shut 38 years ago: report

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ANKARA: Turkey to reopen Orthodox school shut 38 years ago: report

    Hurriyet, Turkey
    June 28 2009


    Turkey to reopen Orthodox school shut 38 years ago: report

    ANKARA - Turkey is planning to re-open a Greek Orthodox seminary that
    was shut down nearly four decades ago, Turkeys culture minister was
    quoted as saying Sunday.


    The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, and the United
    States have long pressed Ankara to re-open the theology school on the
    island of Halki, off Istanbul, to prove respect for the rights of its
    tiny Christian minority.

    Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said the government was inclined to
    re-open the school, even though a final decision was not yet made, the
    mass-selling Milliyet daily reported.

    "Both my personal conviction and the general inclination I see is that
    the school will be opened," Gunay was quoted as saying.

    "The school does not currently fit into our university system, but
    another formula will be worked out... There is no political problem,"
    he said.

    The minister explained the authorities were grappling with "the
    technical problem" on whether the seminary should have the status of a
    university or a vocational high school.

    The century-old seminary was closed down in 1971, depriving the
    Eastern Orthodox Church, seated in Istanbul since Byzantine times, of
    its only facility to train clergy in Turkey.

    The closure was the result of legislation bringing institutions of
    higher education under state control, an arrangement into which the
    seminary did not fit.

    Gunay conceded that Turkish-Greek tensions over the island of Cyprus
    at the time were also a prominent factor behind the move.

    "What happened in the past is left behind... We need to say new things
    now," he said.

    Keen to boost its struggling EU membership bid, Ankara has in recent
    years moved to improve the rights of its tiny non-Muslim minorities,
    mainly Greeks, Armenians and Jews.
Working...
X