Posted on 05/15/2013 9:47:13 AM PDT by marshmallow
The memorable play of Irish author and playwright Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot," has become a metaphor for situations in which people wait for someone unlikely to come, or do not even know what they are expecting. They just keep waiting and waiting.
The handful of Orthodox Greeks left in Turkey appear to be waiting for Godot, too, caught in a very typical Turkish situation. The Theological School of Halki, which is attached to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has been closed down since 1971. Almost every day for the past 42 years, the Orthodox community has been anticipating the news of the school's re-opening, but to no avail.
To understand why the anticipation has become so exhausting and frustrating, one has to look back through history and comprehend the significance of the seminary to the Orthodox community.
Named after the island of Halki in the Marmara Sea, where it was founded in 1844, the school used to train clergy to meet the needs of not only Turkey’s Orthodox community but also hundreds of churches across the world affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. By the time it was shut down in 1971 under a ruling by Turkey’s constitutional court, 930 clergymen had graduated from the seminary. Twelve of them eventually became patriarchs, meaning that almost all patriarchs have been graduates of that school. Hence, the seminary was not just a theological school, but also an important milestone on the way to the spiritual helm of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The school's closure cut a lifeline of the Patriarchate and forced it to struggle for its very survival.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and its succession by the Republic of Turkey marked the beginning of the long road that eventually led the Ecumenical Patriarchate into its current predicament. Throughout the republic's history, the...........
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yes, there is NO future whatsoever for Christians (or Jews, or Hindus for that matter) in any country where Islam takes over. Period. None. Get used to it.
They had to be forced out because even though it was oppressive and brutal, it was home for them. Because they would not convert to Islam, they had to leave everything behind and go, God knew where, and hope for the best. It had been their home for thousands of years-even before the Turkoman people entered the sub continent.
What the Muslims are doing now is not new. It's been going on for a very long time.
The stories my grand mother told me were horrific.
Your family must then date back to the days of the ancient Greeks/Romans/Byzantines in other words.
Best to leave then.
Ha!...no records, just baptismal records... so that means at least to the time of Christ.
It’s interesting though, when I read Gibbon (”Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”)it is stated that Alexander met Greek-speeking people in Asia Minor when he went there. That was centuries before Christ.
yes it has been going on for a very very long time indeed
the Islamicists are just the modern version of it, is all
we agree
They are basically hittite-greek-armenian-hurrian
SMARTY's grandparents too will be of such ancient stock, without the Turkic element.
Oh and probably some sumerian and Arab mixed in with Celtic (Galician) and Italic.
All of what is now the coastline of Turkey was Greek, with Greek cities (some like milene were founded even by the Assyrians in 700 BC or earlier).
Also Greeks traded along the coast of the Black sea right up to the borders with Colchic (an ancient Kartvelian (Georgian) civilisation) -- the origins of the myth of the Argonauts.
Finally, the Greeks were mercenaries at least since the days of Cyrus the Great (500 BC) and probably earlier during the heydays of the neo-Assyrian empire.
i think they are mentioned in neo-Assyrian records as the barbaric people from the north.
It’s just a little bit inland from the S. coast of the Black Sea.
I guess there were silver mines there at one time, but long since all played out.
Mostly, they kept sheep and goats. The land was not good for farming. They must have traded for essentials and what they couldn't make or grow themselves. They kept the animals on the lowland during winter, and moved up with the flocks into the mountains in the spring.
In centuries passed, the area was part of the old overland ‘Silk Road. I've seen photos of it and it all looks like Montana.P> Before Columbus proved you could get E. by going W., it was kind of busy with caravan trade and etc. Once the sea route was established, it became a backwater.
The Greeks there, were some of the earliest Christians. When Muslims first occupied the place, there were more or less tolerant... that changed.
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