When pope and patriarch meet, the key date isn’t 1054 but 2054 - and highlighting Christianity in Turkey - The Boston Globe

When Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople meet this month in Jerusalem, the buzz probably will be about two milestones from the past: 1054, when Eastern and Western Christianity split, and 1964, when Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras embraced in the Holy Land to begin healing the division. That historic meeting 50 years ago helped launch the modern ecumenical movement for Christian unity.




For anyone who understands the realities facing Christianity in the Middle East today, however, the most relevant date actually lies in the future — 2054, to be exact. When the 1,000th anniversary of the East-West rupture rolls around 40 years from now, the question is whether there will still be an ecumenical patriarchate in Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul in Turkey, to mark it.

There’s every possibility that in the meantime, the historic “first among equals” in the Orthodox world will become another chapter of the slow-motion extinction of Christianity across the land of its birth.

Turkey may be officially secular, but sociologically it’s an Islamic society with a population of 75 million that’s 97 percent Muslim. Although it was a center of early Christianity, today there are just 150,000 Christians left, mostly Greek and Armenian Orthodox. They endure various forms of harassment, including difficulties in obtaining permits to build or repair churches, surveillance by security agencies, unfair judicial treatment, and discrimination in housing and employment.

The Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary is an emblematic case. Founded in 1844 as the principal school of theology for the ecumenical patriarchate, it was considered one of the premier centers of learning in the Orthodox world. It was forced to shut down in 1971 after Turkey barred private universities.

National law also requires the patriarch of Constantinople to be a Turkish citizen. Given the dwindling Christian community and the inability to provide theological formation, many believe it will be increasingly difficult to find suitable clergy to satisfy the requirement, and that eventually the office could lapse for lack of a qualified candidate.

Toward the end of 2009, the normally reserved and diplomatic Bartholomew appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and shocked Turkey’s political establishment by saying out loud that Turkey’s Christians are second-class citizens and that he felt “crucified” by a state that wants to see his church die out.

That’s not just rhetoric, as physical attacks on Christians in Turkey have become increasingly common and brazen over the last decade.




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When pope and patriarch meet, the key date isn’t 1054 but 2054 - World - The Boston Globe