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Agence France Presse
July 5, 2012 Thursday 12:36 PM GMT
Turkey's top imam backs re-opening Orthodox clergy schools
ISTANBUL, July 5 2012
Turkey's top Muslim cleric urged the re-opening of Orthodox clergy
schools during a landmark visit paid to the spiritual leader of the
world's Orthodox Christians on Thursday.
"The fact that any religious community in this nation has to depend on
other countries to raise their own clerics just does not befit the
grandiosity of this country," said Mehmet Gormez, the head of Turkey's
Religious Affairs Directorate.
The top imam's call for the re-opening of theology schools came in
response to reporters' questions about whether the Halki seminary,
where the Orthodox patriarchate used to train clergy, would be
operational once again.
Whatever religious rights Muslims enjoy in Turkey should also be
available to the followers of any other religion, Gormez told
journalists after the rare visit.
The Halki seminary located on an island off Istanbul was closed in
1971, after Turkey fell out with Greece over Cyprus.
"If we get the permission today, we can make the school operational
tomorrow," the Patriarch, Bartholomew I, said following Gormez's call
on the government.
"Our government has a positive attitude (toward re-opening of the
theology school), that's what we want to be believe," he noted.
Both the United States and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to
join, have increased pressure on Ankara to re-open the Halki seminary
as well as introducing further rights for religious minorities in the
new constitution it is currently drafting.
The patriarch was consulted in February by the Turkish parliament,
which he addressed for the first time, about the role of religious
minorities in the new text of the constitution for the Muslim majority
but secular nation.
Turkey refuses to recognize Bartholomew I's title as head of the world
Orthodox Christians, considering him only the spiritual head of
Turkey's tiny Greek Orthodox minority.
Today the Greek Orthodox population numbers little more than 2,500
people in Istanbul. There are also some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000
Orthodox Syrians among the minority religious groups.
ck/boc
July 5, 2012 Thursday 12:36 PM GMT
Turkey's top imam backs re-opening Orthodox clergy schools
ISTANBUL, July 5 2012
Turkey's top Muslim cleric urged the re-opening of Orthodox clergy
schools during a landmark visit paid to the spiritual leader of the
world's Orthodox Christians on Thursday.
"The fact that any religious community in this nation has to depend on
other countries to raise their own clerics just does not befit the
grandiosity of this country," said Mehmet Gormez, the head of Turkey's
Religious Affairs Directorate.
The top imam's call for the re-opening of theology schools came in
response to reporters' questions about whether the Halki seminary,
where the Orthodox patriarchate used to train clergy, would be
operational once again.
Whatever religious rights Muslims enjoy in Turkey should also be
available to the followers of any other religion, Gormez told
journalists after the rare visit.
The Halki seminary located on an island off Istanbul was closed in
1971, after Turkey fell out with Greece over Cyprus.
"If we get the permission today, we can make the school operational
tomorrow," the Patriarch, Bartholomew I, said following Gormez's call
on the government.
"Our government has a positive attitude (toward re-opening of the
theology school), that's what we want to be believe," he noted.
Both the United States and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to
join, have increased pressure on Ankara to re-open the Halki seminary
as well as introducing further rights for religious minorities in the
new constitution it is currently drafting.
The patriarch was consulted in February by the Turkish parliament,
which he addressed for the first time, about the role of religious
minorities in the new text of the constitution for the Muslim majority
but secular nation.
Turkey refuses to recognize Bartholomew I's title as head of the world
Orthodox Christians, considering him only the spiritual head of
Turkey's tiny Greek Orthodox minority.
Today the Greek Orthodox population numbers little more than 2,500
people in Istanbul. There are also some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000
Orthodox Syrians among the minority religious groups.
ck/boc