A Diminishing Flock: The Christians of Turkey
April 9, 1994, in The Tampa Tribune
Copyright (1994) & written by Anastasia Stanmeyer
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- His footsteps echo loudly in the empty, expansive hallway. Images of professors and pupils emerge from the shadows as the monk walks in solitude.
To Father Isaias Simonopetritis, the seminary on the Turkish island of Heybeliada near Istanbul never closed. Yet he knows it has, as he paces where leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church once were groomed.
"It's necessary to have a continuance. Somebody must be a line," says Simonopetritis, the theological school's keeper. "What has been handed to us has been so precious."
"I do get sometimes very frustrated. We're shackled. We can't do what we want."
The Eastern Orthodox faith -- encompassing Greek, Russian, Romanian and other ethnic groups -- was born more than 1,600 years ago in Istanbul. The seat of the religion remains there, but its future is unclear in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, where the Islamic religion permeates everyday life.
Ethnic cleansing gradually has pushed out most Eastern Orthodox, who have given up on their homeland amid government restrictions and fundamentalist attacks. Where once hundreds of thousands of Greek Orthodox lived, no more than 5,000 remain.
The most apparent restriction is the closing of the theological school, the greatest threat to the Eastern Orthodox faith and its leadership. The Turkish government shut the 150-year-old seminary in 1971, when it decided religious and ethnic minorities couldn't run universities or other institutions of higher learning.
"This is something which is really impermissible," says Archbishop Iakovos, spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox faith in North and South America. "Education cannot be limited. Religion must be free to exercise its mission. This threat lies there undisturbed, and no one cares."
In December, the World Council of Churches sent a letter to the prime minister of Turkey, asking that the seminary function again. The government hasn't responded.
Unsuccessful appeals to reopen the school leave in question the future of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, where the Eastern Orthodox Church officially settled in 325 A.D. and where the spiritual headquarters of 300 million faithful remains.
In the past year, there have been other indications that this religion is unwelcome in Turkey. Local elections on March 27 indicate that Muslim fundamentalists are gaining strength and popularity. The (Islamist) Welfare Party won 22 mayoral races out of 61 cities across Turkey, including Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. The 22 victories were twice as many as the nearest total for any other party.
Following the elections, [....] [a] few Molotov cocktails [..] were planted in the Ecumenical Patriarchate compound, nestled within a concentration of Muslim extremists. At least one bomb went off, but no one was hurt, according to reports. Someone also wrote "Down With Christians/Islamic Up" outside the Patriarchate's gate.
Vandals last year desecrated a cemetery where 10,000 Greeks were buried, smashing marble tombs and scattering the remains of five corpses.
And a homemade bomb crashed through the window of one Greek school; at another, some Greeks guarded the front of the building to keep a bulldozer from demolishing it.
Greeks weren't always treated this way. As late as 1920, there were more than 100,000 Greeks in what is now called Istanbul. As political conflicts arose between Turkey and Greece, the numbers dropped drastically. By 1970, that number dwindled to 30,000.
Official counts show 5,000 Greeks in Turkey now, but some say the number is perhaps half that. Ninety-eight percent of the 59.6 million people in Turkey are Muslim.
"There's still that Turkish or Muslim element that wants all minorities to leave the land," says Deacon Tarasios Antonopoulos, 37, at the Patriarchate. "It's a systematic way to eliminate minorities. There's no security for tomorrow."
Antonopoulos' deep faith took him from Texas to Turkey three years ago to learn the roots of his religion. He leaves the country every three months to renew his passport because it's difficult for Greeks to become citizens.
"We just want to be left alone, with speech, education and religious freedom," he says. "That all might be written in the constitution, but it's not practiced."
A LONG TRADITION
The history of Istanbul extends long before the time of Jesus Christ. The city of Byzantium-- later named Constantinople, then Istanbul -- was built by Greeks in 657 B.C. After the fall of Rome in the fifth century, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the "New Rome," for 1,000 years. Constantine the Great was the first Christian ruler, making the religion legal.
The city fell in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, who ruled a vast empire for more than 400 years. After Turkey's defeat in World War I, the Republic of Turkey was declared in October 1923.
Istanbul, stretching across 98 square miles, straddles both sides of the Bosporus strait, which separates Europe from Asia. Once the country's capital before the modern republic was established, Istanbul remains the largest Turkish city where many remaining Greeks live.
Some Byzantine-style Eastern Orthodox churches still stand in Istanbul, many used as mosques or museums. Where once hundreds of Greek Orthodox priests served, only 50 are left in Turkey, most older than 60.
George Jahos has been a caretaker for 12 years at a smaller church in downtown Istanbul, where nine people attend Sunday services. Old icons adorn the 114-year-old holy place, where a faint scent of incense hangs near the altar. "Here in Turkey, we are finished," says Jahos, 60.
In nearby Fener, a section of Istanbul, is the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a compound behind concrete walls and iron gates that is the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Anyone serving there, including the patriarch, must be a Turkish citizen.
"We are accustomed to living in more or less severe situations," says Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Greeks and other minorities still encounter difficulties in day-to-day dealings with government employees. But in the past few years, top Turkish officials have changed their attitude toward the Patriarchate because they want the country to be part of the European [Union] and want to show that minorities are treated well, Bartholomew speculates. Government officials often greet him at airports and offer him special luncheons.
"The Turkish government is sensitive to accusations that it is letting fundamentalists gain more power in Turkey," says Iakovos, 82, who was born on a Turkish island and now lives in New York.
Bartholomew, 53, who became the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox religion in October 1991, says Eastern Orthodox hierarchs must play a visible role internationally.
The world is opening, such as the former Soviet Union, where most Christians are Russian Orthodox. In the United States alone, there are about 5 million Eastern Orthodox followers.
As the faith is more well-known, there could be greater global awareness of the Greek Orthodox situation in Turkey, adds Bartholomew.
Although many Greeks in Turkey say they have no future there, Bartholomew and other high priests hope the religion can remain strong in its homeland.
"We will not give even one inch of our history," says Iakovos. "If God wills that we are eradicated from there, it will be done -- but not because the Turks did it."
Many Greeks in Turkey fear speaking out. Still, they strive for religious freedom, says Iakovos.
He and other high Orthodox priests strongly believe that the theological school must reopen to maintain centuries-old traditions.
The Monastery of the Holy Trinity with the Theological School of Halki -- the [...] Greek name of the island of Heybeliada -- rests on a hill's summit in the center of the Princes Islands.
The monastery was established more than 1,180 years ago and was expanded in 1844 to accommodate the theological school. It was an institution where Eastern Orthodox leaders attended classes. Nearly 2,000 students graduated from there, with 120 students in the school at any one time.
For the past 23 years, candidates have been sent to the University of Salonika in Greece. Most stay there after completing their studies, contributing to a shortage of Orthodox clergy in Turkey.
"It's not easy to find candidates to ordain. These are negative consequences of the elimination of our people," Bartholomew says, sitting at his desk in Istanbul.
A small icon of Jesus hangs from a heavy chain around his neck. A painting of modern Turkey's founder -- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk -- hangs on a nearby wall.
In the background, daily Muslim religious chanting carries over loudspeakers.
"It is a problem to see the diminution of our flock, which creates practical problems," Bartholomew says. "We put our future in the hands of our Lord. We have full confidence of our divine providence."
FULFILLING A DREAM
Eastern Orthodox patriarchs and archbishops, including Bartholomew, attended the theological school, with 55,000 volumes of Byzantine manuscripts and books, some dating to the 1500s. "Each book has a history, a past," seminary caretaker Simonopetritis says, lightly touching a book dated 1562. He reads aloud in Latin from the worn, brown pages. The next generation of Eastern Orthodox leaders, he says, won't come from a common pool of clergy.
"There has to be a central powerhouse," says Simonopetritis, 45. "It secures solidarity and oneness of mind, with the hierarchs from here."
He has lived on the island for nearly four years. Heybeliada, in the Marmara Sea, is less than an hour's boat ride from Istanbul.
Villas, small peaks, pine-covered slopes, horse-drawn carriages and outdoor marketplaces predominate. About 60 Greeks live on the densely populated island. Only the military and police are allowed cars. Most people walk.
Simonopetritis, born in Wimbledon, England, was assigned to the seminary by the Patriarchate. He keeps the place alive, poring over ancient writings and directing visitors. He speaks Turkish, Russian, Greek and English.
"It's my daydream, the school being reopened and giving good fruits to the church," he says. So he waits, patiently. Everything is perfectly maintained and in place, down to the chalk for the blackboard.
"We need fresh blood in the body of our church," Bartholomew says. "We cannot be isolated anymore."