Free Republic

Five hundred and fifty-four years ago on this day the Roman Empire was at last extinguished. By then the Empire was, of course, Greek not Roman; Christian not pagan; and no longer strong but pitifully weak. Dispossessed of all its Anatolian and Asian province, and most of its European, all that remained was the great city of Constantinople, much of which was reduced by privation, disease, and depopulation to overgrown ruins. The Turks under a great conqueror, Mehmet II, besieged the city beginning in April, the day after Easter. They outnumbered the defenders at least 10 to 1; possibly the...

INTRODUCTION In the year 380 the emperors Gratian and Theodosius I decided to convoke this council to counter the Arians, and also to judge the case of Maximus the Cynic, bishop of Constantinople. The council met in May of the following year. One hundred and fifty bishops took part, all of them eastern Orthodox, since the Pneumatomachi party had left at the start. After Maximus had been condemned, Meletius, bishop of Antioch, appointed Gregory of Nazianzus as the lawful bishop of Constantinople and at first presided over the council. Then on Meletius's sudden death, Gregory took charge of the council...

ISTANBUL, November 30, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Are Christianity’s biggest churches heading toward a holy alliance? In a historic step today, Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual head of Orthodox Christians, celebrated mass together at Istanbul’s St. George Church. They then signed a joint declaration calling for “uniting our efforts to preserve Christian roots, traditions and values” in Europe. Benedict called the millennium-old division of the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics and 250 million Orthodox a “scandal.” "The divisions which exist among Christians are a scandal to the world and an obstacle to the proclamation of the...

Pope Benedict XVI has visited one of Turkey's most famous mosques in what is being seen as an attempt to mend relations with the Muslim community. During his tour of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the pontiff paused in silent prayer alongside senior Muslim clerics. It marks only the second papal visit in history to a Muslim place of worship. Earlier, the Pope visited the nearby Hagia Sophia Museum - a site heavy with Christian and Muslim symbolism - drawing around 150 protesters. The Pope spent half an hour in Hagia Sophia, a domed complex that was once a Christian...

22 November 2006, 14:54 Moscow Patriarchate is against Constantinople’s attempts to intervene in other Orthodox Churches’ affairs Moscow, November 22, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church denies that the Patriarchate of Constantinople can intervene in internal affairs of other Churches and urges to prevent division in the Orthodox world. ‘We deny the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s capacity to intervene in the jurisdiction of other Churches. This idea separates us from Rome at present,’ said the Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad at the opening of the annual Radonezh festival of Orthodox...

What happened to the 50 tons of gold, silver and sacred treasures looted from Herod's Temple following the Roman legionnaires' sack of Jerusalem on Tisha b'Av in the year 70 CE? The Arch of Titus in Rome, erected shortly after the death of Titus who reigned as emperor from 79 to 81, clearly depicts Roman soldiers bearing on their shoulders the golden candelabrum, silver trumpets and bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence which the Roman emperor Vespasian and his son Titus carted back to Rome as trophies of war. Between 75 CE and the early 5th century, the treasure...

"ORTHODOXOS TYPOS": Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Denounces Moscow's "3rd Rome" Theory According to the Athens newspaper To Vima of 8 July 2004, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew responded to the "3rd Rome" theory of the Patriarch of Moscow (which had been brought up for discussion during the 8th International Assemblage of the Russian Orthodox Church) by calling it "...foolish, hubristic, and blasphemous," because "...it resounds with the spirit of caesarpapism and vaticanism; something totally unacceptable to the Orthodox Church." To Vima went on to report that the Ecumenical Patriarch replied specifically to the positions and arguments posited by the attending Church hierarchy and...

There's an icon of the Pope of Rome and the Patricarch of Constantinople in a church in Greece.

It seems a typical scene of urban decay: abandoned buildings, crumbling walls, trash and broken wine bottles. Yet it's more than 1,500 years old. Engineers uncovered these ruins of an ancient Byzantine port during drilling for a huge underground rail tunnel. Like Romans, Athenians and residents of other great historic cities, the people of Istanbul can hardly put a shovel in the ground without digging up something important. But the ancient port uncovered last November in the Yenikapi neighborhood is of a different scale: It has grown into the largest archaeological dig in Istanbul's history, and the port's extent is...

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 30, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered Thursday to members of a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, led by Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas of Pergamum, who came to Rome on the occasion of the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. * * * Dear Brothers in Christ, With great joy and sincere affection in the Lord, I welcome today your eminence, Metropolitan Ioannis, and the other members of the delegation that his holiness Bartholomew I and the Holy Synod of the ecumenical patriarchate have graciously sent for the feast of Sts. Peter and...

ROMA, March 22, 2006 – In the summer of 2004, when he was a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger on two occasions defined as “a great error” the addition of Turkey to the European Union. But now that Ratzinger is pope, his position is no longer one of prejudicial rejection. This can be gathered from an article published in the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the magazine of the Rome Jesuits that is examined and approved by the Holy See before being printed. The author of the article is Jesuit Fr. Giovanni Sale, a specialist in the political history of the...

At recent Sunday morning services held at Istanbul’s Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox church, a mere 26 worshipers lined up to receive communion in a nave designed to hold hundreds. With bread in hand they proceeded to circumambulate the church’s four main pillars, with some kissing a giant portrait of Jesus, before leaving. The scene helps illustrate the difficulties facing the Turkey’s Greek community. In addition to adverse demographic trends, church representatives complain that Turkish property legislation is threatening efforts to sustain Turkey’s Greek community. In a country where 99 percent of the population is Muslim, religion has served as a...

Overcoming the church schism is a condition for Ukraine’s welfare - Metropolitan Kirill Kiev, November 25, Interfax - ‘The overcoming of the existing Orthodox schism is an indispensable condition for the economic and cultural welfare of Ukraine’, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad stated at his meeting with the episcopate and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and students of the Kiev Theological Academy that took place last Thursday at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. The head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR) condemned the actions aimed at ‘consolidating the schism with attempts to involve...

".....the most recent hostile demonstrations and threats against the holy center of world Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in Istanbul, Turkey. This latest assault took place last Thursday, October 28, when groups of Turkish nationalists and other extreme elements demonstrated in Phanar against the Ecumenical Patriarchate chanting slogans such as “one night we’ll come to the Phanar,” “go away Patriarch,” “Patriarch don’t test our patience,” “take the Patriarchate and go to Greece,” and the like. Before police intervened, the angry demonstrators reached the entrance to the Patriarchal compound, and placed a black wreath in front of the gate. ......"

If you believe in the just case that Hagia Sophia should be restored to its proper religious role as a church, for which it was built in the first place, then we ask you to support our petition to the EU Parliament that Turkey should not be admitted as a member of the European Community until it restores Hagia Sophia to its original purpose as a church and not a museum. We need a minimum of 1.000.000 signatures in order to force the European Union to consider this proposal seriously and debate it immediately as one of the conditions to...

Greece’s highest administrative court has rejected an appeal by Esphigmenou Monastery, upholding their eviction from the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery. According to court sources, the Council of State ruled that it had no jurisdiction to decide whether the Esphigmenou monks were schismatic, as the Patriarchate has declared. The court decided that, under Greece’s constitution, the patriarchate has supreme spiritual authority over the semi-autonomous Mount Athos monastic community and is not subject to judicial scrutiny of such matters. The monks in Esphigmenou Monastery have been ordered out.

Thursday, October 21, 2004 · Last updated 5:24 a.m. PT Pope makes gesture to Orthodox Church THE ASSOCIATED PRESS VATICAN CITY -- The pope won't be going to Istanbul, but in a gesture to the Orthodox Church he is returning the relics of two saints that were seized by Crusaders 800 years ago, Vatican officials said Thursday. Ecumenical Patriarch Barthlomew I of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, had asked for the return of the relics when he met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in June. At that time, he also invited the pope to visit...

BOSTON - The Theological School of Halki of the Ecumenical Patriarchate will not open as was highly expected and despite the many assurances given by the Turkish government to U.S. President George Bush during his visit to Turkey last June, and to Greek Orthodox Church leaders. According to exclusive information acquired by The National Herald, the Council of National Security of Turkey has decided to "freeze" indefinitely the issue of reopening the Theological School of Halki. The Herald has learned that the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was confronted with strong opposition, even threats, by the military generals and other...

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE WEST The coming 29th of May marks the sad 551 st anniversary since the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Much has been written about this tragic event, but the famous Finish author Mika Waltary has crystallized the impact of this tragedy to the western world, as to what will happen to the west if Constantinople falls, in the following few phrases: "Flesh without spirit," I said. "Life without hope, the slavery of mankind —a bondage so hopeless that slaves will no longer know they are slaves. Wealth without happiness, abun­dance without the...

Wednesday April 14, 2004 PATRIARCH’S PARDONVartholomaios forgives Catholics for sack of Constantinople in 1204 Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios yesterday forgave Catholics for the 1204 sack of Constantinople by crusaders from the Fourth Crusade during a liturgy in Istanbul marking the 800th anniversary of the event and attended by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon. “We cannot forget that tragic day for Constantinople and for our Patriarchate but we forgive... and we accept with satisfaction the expression of their regret and the reassurance that the West will never again undertake such an abomination against the Christians of the East,” Vartholomaios said. “It...