PLOTTERS PLANNED TO OVERTHROW GOVERNMENT BY USING US, SAYS BARTHOLOMEW

Today’s Zaman
Nov 26 2009
Turkey

Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew has said dark forces planned
to use minorities to overthrow the government as revealed in the
investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine organization accused of
attempting to create chaos and undermine the stability of the country
in order to trigger a coup d’état.

Based in Ä°stanbul, the spiritual leader of the world’s approximately
300 million Orthodox Christians, Bartholomew was referring to the
latest revelations of a devious plan, called the Cage Operation
Action Plan, by a group of members of the Naval Forces Command aimed
at intimidating the country’s non-Muslim population by assassinating
some of their prominent figures and in this way undermine the power
of the ruling party. Recent incidents in Ä°stanbul’s KurtuluÅ~_
neighborhood and Adalar district suggest that the alleged plan had
already been put into operation. Speaking on Tuesday, the Orthodox
religious leader recalled that a meeting of the Association of the
Zografyon High School Alumni was raided about four years ago.

Patriarch Bartholomew is hopeful that the revelations related to the
‘Cage Operation Action Plan’ aimed at pitting the country’s non-Muslim
population against nationalist forces will lead to solving more
problems in the country

"When the Cage Plan was revealed, we thought that the raid could be
part of that plan," he said. "At the time we thought that they were
just trying to scare us." The patriarch said nobody was detained
in relation to that incident. Patriarch Bartholomew is grateful to
the security forces which uncovered the "dark plans." "It is a very
satisfactory development that the Turkish police and the prosecutors
have been revealing those dark plans so the responsible people are
captured and tried."

The patriarch is hopeful that the troubles of the Greek minority and
other minorities in Turkey will soon be resolved. And for that he
trusts the government’s democratic initiative, which aims to grant
more rights to citizens, even though it was mostly associated with the
Kurdish initiative since it was one of the first steps. "We are very
positive about the initiatives of our government. It is imperative
all over the world that minorities should be treated with goodwill."

In addition, the patriarch said all the initiatives involving Kurdish
and Alevi citizens and efforts to establish diplomatic relations
with Armenia will help Turkey’s European Union accession process. "It
gives us a lot of hope that Turkey is moving toward the West and the
European Union with the initiatives. Those moves make us fell better
while we are living in Turkey. God willing, the rest of our problems
will be solved and we will be treated as equal citizens."

Bartholomew hopes that the main school of theology of the Eastern
Orthodox Church, the Halkı seminary, closed in 1971, will be reopened.

The seminary was closed under a law that put religious training under
state control. EU officials and the United States have repeatedly
called on Turkey to open the seminary, which has trained generations
of Orthodox leaders, including Bartholomew.After its closure, the
patriarchate tried to train future leaders of the church by sending
them to schools of theology abroad.

‘Sevgi Erenerol injured us a lot’ Patriarch Bartholomew said they
would like to use legal avenues in order to get three Greek churches
given to the self-declared "Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate" run by the
Erenerol family back. As part of the investigation into Ergenekon,
several people with links to Turkey’s "deep state" were arrested
and among them was Sevgi Erenerol, the "media and public relations
officer of the independent patriarchate."

She is the granddaughter of Father Eftim, founder of the so-called
"Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate." "Sevgi Erenerol hurt us a lot. She
was talking against us. It has been revealed that they had meetings in
those churches against us, the state and the [Justice and Development
Party] AK Party. It’s a pity that a place of worship was used for
such purposes," the patriarch said.

Father Eftim was a village priest from the Turkish-speaking Karamanlı
Greek community of Cappadocia in Anatolia who supported the Turks
during the War of Independence. He then became the leader of the
"patriarchate" in Kayseri in 1922 under the name of the "Independent
Patriarchate of the Turkish Orthodox."

Eftim and his family were exempted from the population exchange
between Greece and Turkey, but his small congregation moved out of the
country. Without any congregation, Eftim moved to Ä°stanbul in 1924,
together with the "patriarchate." Eftim had some followers in Galata,
an area with a large Greek population. Eftim’s son Turgut succeeded
his father and called himself Patriarch Eftim II. Then came Turgut’s
brother, and then they brought PaÅ~_a [Sevgi Erenerol’s brother]
from the US to assume the role of the "patriarch." They have all been
excommunicated by the Orthodox Church.

Eftim and his sons call themselves "patriarchs." Patriarch Bartholomew
said nobody elected them."Father Eftim was married, so it was not
possible for him to be a patriarch or bishop. He acted against
the Patriarchate. He was excommunicated but he declared himself
‘patriarch.’ Nobody recognizes the ‘Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate.’
They don’t even have followers. But they received state support. Eftim
and his men came to the Patriarchate and raided it in the 1920s. After
his demise his son took over. Indeed, patriarchs are elected and
it is not a position to be passed from father to son. In the end,
their relations with Ergenekon have been revealed."

In the pages 971-980 of the Ergenekon indictment, there are
explanations about the actions of Sevgi Erenerol and "Turkish
Orthodox Patriarchate." On Oct. 28, 2005, some platforms such as the
Nationalist Businesspeople Association, the Noel Baba Foundation and
the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate held a protest in front of the Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate and shouted, "The patriarchate should go to
Greece." Ergenekon suspect Kemal Kerincsiz and Noel Baba Foundation
President Muammer Karabulut delivered speeches at the protest, which
were attended by also Sevgi Erenerol and Zeki Yurdakul Cagman. They
left a black wreath at the gates of the Patriarchate.

‘We are citizens of Turkey’ Patriarch Bartholomew, whose initiatives
include advancing religious tolerance among the world’s religions
have been widely noted, although received with suspicion by some
in Turkey, said the number of the Greek-Turkish citizens living in
Turkey is decreasing every day.

"Democratic initiatives will prevent the rest from leaving," the
patriarch said.

"It is sad to hear that our foundations have been referred as
‘foreign.’ We are Christians but we are born here and we were raised
here. I was born in Gökceada. I love my country and village. I did
my military service for two years. I pay my taxes. Our only difference
is our religion. But we are equal citizens under the Constitution."

Records of Greek conference were stolen

On Aug. 12, 2006, all the records belonging to the Greek Conference,
which was organized by the Association of the Zografyon High School
Alumni, were stolen from the association’s Taksim office. The
association’s president, Laki Vingas, said nothing but the hard-disc
which contained the records of the conference was stolen.

"We had three locked rooms in the office. The thieves did not
even bother to unlock these doors, they just took the hard disc,"
Vingas said.

"There was somebody in the conference room who was constantly
recording. I asked the person what television channel he represented.

He said he was an official. He recorded the whole conference and
asked for the participation list. We gave the list to them. Some
people might have broken into our offices to scare us."

In the conference which brought together Greek people from Ä°stanbul
who were dispersed all over the world, the problems of the Greek
community in Ä°stanbul were discussed. Patriarch Bartholomew had
opened the conference called "Meeting in Ä°stanbul: Today-Tomorrow."