PATRIARCHATE FACES THREAT OVER ‘ECUMENICAL’ TITLE
Andrew Finkel Ýstanbul

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
July 18 2007

An ancient grudge over baptism certificates, a far-right wing lawyer
with a mind to make trouble and a popular Greek crooner with a
reputation for speaking his mind have all conspired to create legal
misery for Ýstanbul’s 2000-year-old "Ecumenical Patriarchate."

The result is that Metropolitans of the Phanar-based church are now
under police protection.

The troubles stem from a high appeal court (Yargýtay) decision that
questions the right of the Greek Orthodox in Turkey to refer to itself
as "Ecumenical" — a title which confers the Istanbul-based church
to be the first among equals of the over 250 million adherents of
Orthodox Christianity — a position enjoyed by the patriarch since
the split with Rome in 1054.

The decision comes as part of a ruling that allowed the patriarch
to defrock a Bulgarian priest who rebelled over the patriarchate’s
insistence on issuing baptismal documents in Greek rather than
Bulgarian. This has now led Bujidar Cipof, a member of the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church council, to petition the Beyoðlu, Istanbul state
prosecutor to pursue the patriarch on charges of "malfeasance of
religious services."

A spokesman for the Fener Patriarchate said it was bound by court
decision, but that ecumenical was not a legal title but one sanctioned
by historical usage and religious custom. "The whole world knows us
as the ‘Ecumenical Patriarchate.’ In modern Turkey the state would
not interfere in religious practice."

This is not a view shared by Mr. Cipof. "Patriarch Bartolomeos is not
some remnant from the Middle Ages. He should not forget that his title
deed is given by the Turkish Republic under the Lausanne Treaty." Nor
is Mr. Cipof the only one on the legal warpath. Kemal Kerincsýz, an
ultra-nationalist lawyer, has also applied to the public prosecutor
to stop the patriarch from convening a synod with metropolitans from
other autocephalous (foreign national) Orthodox Churches.

Mr. Kerincsiz is better known for the cases he helped instigate
against Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk and assassinated Armenian
newspaper editor Hrant Dink for insulting Turkishness. The result of
the current action is that metropolitans of the Orthodox Church have
now been assigned police guard by the Ýstanbul Governor’s Office,
according to the lawyer for the Patriarchate, Kezban Hatemi.

Ms. Hatemi said so far the prosecutors’ office had not requested
statements and she denied the Patriarchate had any case to answer.

"This is not legal code but religious law and is not something the
state authorities in a secular country should be concerned with,"
she said.

Even so, that same Governor’s Office banned at the very last minute
a pop concert that the Patriarchate had arranged last Sunday to
celebrate a youth conference. The performance at Ýstanbul’s Rumeli
Hisarý castle amphitheater featured the popular Greek singer George
Dalaras. In a column in Hurriyet newspaper, right-wing columnist Emin
Colaþan accused the Ministry of Culture of being at the beck and call
of the Patriarchate for allowing one of their premises to be used by a
man who had been an outspoken critic of Turkey over Cyprus and the PKK.

"The cancellation was a big disappointment, but they do things like
this. We are used to it," said Paul Gigas, a lay volunteer at the
Patriarchate.

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