Protesters burned an effigy of the patriarch Posted on 09/06/2004 5:11:21 PM PDT by Destro
Last Updated: Monday, 6 September, 2004, 09:34 GMT 10:34 UK
Clashes erupt at Turkey protest
Protesters burned an effigy of the patriarch
Police in Istanbul have clashed with Turkish right-wing demonstrators protesting against what they describe as concessions to Orthodox Christians.
Turkish media said the police used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of protesters marching towards the offices of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Earlier on Sunday, the crowd burned his effigy and threw stones at police.
Some nationalists have been angered by the government's decision to allow the reopening of an Orthodox seminary.
The Istanbul seminary, closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971, trained generations of church leaders, including Bartholomew.
EU membership
The BBC's James Ingham says reforms allowing more rights to Orthodox Christians are promoted by a government keen to show it is committed to a secular society as its possible membership of the European Union is being considered.
The EU's commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen, is beginning a four-day visit to Turkey, to assess whether the country is ready to start entry talks.
The EU has said it is keen to see wider religious freedom ahead of membership talks.
Christians are a minority in Turkey, but Istanbul remains the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch - who is considered to be the spiritual leader of all Orthodox Christians.
But Nationalist leader Yuksel Kaleci said in a statement that Turkey "is making concession after concession to foreigners and especially to the Patriarchate".
The Patriarchate condemned the "violence" by demonstrators on Sunday. In a statement, it said the protests were the result of "the provocations of people intent on blocking Turkey's EU path".
Look at the Turkish Flag - the star and crescent of Islam.
The Republic of Turkey is secular, there is no state religion.
Our flag is our centuries old battle flag..
>> If it were you would have had the State of Thrace, The State of Smyrna, the State of Pontus, the State of Trebizond, the State of Galatia, The State of Cappadocia, etc.
Bull.. Does the USA have the states of Sioux, Apache, Cherokee, or Navajo?
LMAO..
No reservations for the Greeks or Armenians either - so not like USA :)
Yeah, that stupid drive to make Constanople an "internatonal city"
BTTT
Sure there are reservations.. Just outside our borders.
Depends on whose borders they will be in a generation as the EU decentralization policies takes hold.
Let's do the old Greek "We'll have to see" "Let's see what's gonna happen" "Let's see what they're gonna do" thing.
You and your buds keep up this dumb-ass rhetoric and the minions will burn many more effigies..
Thanks! I always appreciate hearing your comments about Turkey.
Greece will not be responsible for a thing. It is what the EU does. Note Scotland and England devolution.
Check #32 for a research paper on our flag.
In addition, the old Turkish color symbolism seems to have been used in a lot of fairy tales ancient and modern. I was especially intrigued by the north/black, east/blue, south/red, and west/white color symbols. In L. Frank Baum's modern fairy tale The Wizard of Oz, Oz's color scheme is similar: blue/East, yellow/West, red/South, and purple/North.
But back to the point at hand: what I got from the article is that the crescent moon/star image is an ancient one that goes back to the proto-Indo-European people of Central Asia thousands of years before the rise of Islam.
Turkish is related to Korean and Japanese. Barbarian invasions and migrations brought them to the civilized West.
The star and crecent is the symbol if Islam - its cross if you will- origins probably with the pagan goddess Ishtar.
What did the Greeks have to do with any of this? This is between Turkey and the EU.
What is Turkey and the EU? Burning the effigy of the patriarch?
The moon, the sun and Destro's all seeing (*) blind eye.
:)))
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