THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE
by Baron Bodissey
Gates of Vienna
March 26, 2008 Wednesday 10:03 AM EST
Mar. 26, 2008 (Gates of Vienna delivered by Newstex) — Theodore
G. Karakostas is a Greek-American who has written previously about
the crisis in the Balkans and the situation facing the Orthodox Church.
He returns today with an essay on a similar theme.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Ecumenical Patriarchate by Theodore
G. Karakostas
It is very rare when contemporary realities serve as a near repetition
of events that took place five and a half centuries ago.
In the years preceding the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks,
the Greeks undertook a variety of diplomatic measures to gain support
from the West in order to forestall the impending tragedy.
While the Christian Empire fell, and its last Emperor Constantine
Palaeologos died resisting the conquest, one Byzantine office survived
and continues to barely survive up to the present. The Ecumenical
Patriarchate today is the First Among Equals among the Eastern Orthodox
Churches, and his holiness Bartholomaios I has Primacy of honor among
the various Patriarchs and Archbishops of the autocephalous Orthodox
Churches. Today, the Ecumenical Patriarch seeks relief from the West
in order to forestall a tragedy that appears increasingly inevitable
as was the case with the last Christian Emperors.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate is in a state of crisis. The Patriarchs
flock is nearly extinct as a result of the genocidal policies of
the Turkish government. During the First World War, the Young Turks
began their policies of exterminating the Greek Orthodox, Armenian,
and Assyrian Christians of Asia Minor.
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Greece
was briefly permitted to liberate the Christian City of Smyrna and
other portions of Asia Minor in order to protect the surviving Greek
Orthodox. In September 1922, the Turks under the leadership of Mustafa
Kemal conquered the liberated City of Smyrna, and slaughtered the
Greek and Armenian Christians. Among the casualties was the Greek
Archbishop Chrysostom who was slaughtered by Muslim fanatics on the
orders of a Muslim General named Noureddin Pasha.
The new Turkish leadership presided over the extermination and mass
ethnic cleansing of Greek Orthodox in Eastern Thrace and other regions
such as Pontus and Cappadocia. Further ethnic cleansing against the
Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople followed which reduced
the number of Greeks living in the Patriarchal City from nearly
half a million to just over 100,000. Under the Turkish Republic, the
Ecumenical Patriarchate has endured endless harassment and persecution.
The suffering of the flock of this institution that Greeks
reverentially refer to as the Great Church of Christ included
extreme taxation and subsequent deportations to forced labor camps
in Anatolia. A subsequent campaign of terror on September 6, 1955 in
which the entire Greek population was set upon by fanatical mobs of
criminals and resulted in a pogrom which has burned itself into the
collective memories of all Greeks was the beginning of the end for
the Christians of Constantinople.
– – – – – – – – – Many Greeks compare the events of September 1955 with
the atrocities that accompanied the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The
primary difference is that the horrors of the later period in which
Greek Churches and their sacred chalices and Icons were profaned in
unspeakable ways, and priests and Bishops were set on fire and beaten
to death occurred in a country that was a member of the NATO alliance
and the recipient of American economic and military assistance.
Most of the surviving remnants of the Patriarchs faithful were forcibly
driven from Turkey in 1964, and by 1971 the Patriarchal School of
Theology was forcibly closed on the orders of the Turkish government.
Between 1993 and 2004, the Ecumenical Patriarchate was bombed or
attacked by arsonists on at least five occasions, with the murder of
his holiness Bartholomaios I being the primary aim. In July 2007, it
was revealed by Turkish news reports that retired Turkish military
officers planned the assassinations of the Ecumenical Patriarch,
and that of the Armenian Patriarch.
All this is of extreme importance to the United States because
Washington claims to be waging a war on terror. A campaign of terror
against a defenseless minority continues in Turkey as can be seen
by the discriminatory laws against Greeks, and the continued seizure
of property. In the past three months, a Greek Orthodox Monastery in
Turkey was demolished, and a Greek newspaper editor was beaten.
This tragedy that continues to play out does not bode well
for democracy in Turkey. Nor does it bode well for the United
States and its image. The message that Turkish nationalists and
Islamic fundamentalists have heard loud and clear is that American
administrations will tolerate any amount of violations of human rights,
religious freedom, and terror in the name of appeasing Turkey.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate is honored by Greeks with the title The
Great Church which is also used to honor the empty Church of Hagia
Sophia, which itself was named for Christ (meaning literally the Holy
Wisdom of Christ). The displacement of one of the great institutions
of Christendom from what was once the supreme Christian City is a
defeat for democratic values, and a major victory for the intolerant
fanaticism that the West claims to be fighting against.