June 21st, 2001 - Editorial Comment from Mark Albrecht, WEF Religious Liberty E-mail Conference Moderator:

Here is an interesting item about the Orthodox church in Turkey. It concerns one of the oldest seats of theological learning in Christendom, which has been closed by the Turkish government for three decades.

When Istanbul (then called Constantinople, the capital of eastern Orthodox Christianity) was conquered by Muslim armies in the 15th century, the Orthodox church was given autonomous status within the Ottoman Empire's millet system, which granted freedom of religion to the churches. In most cases the historic Christian churches were well-treated by their Muslim Ottoman conquerors throughout the Middle East. When the Ottoman Empire fell in 1918, this system broke down, leading to a gradual erosion of minority religious rights in many Islamic nations.

Turkey, although overwhelmingly Muslim, emerged as a strict anti-clerical secular state in 1923 under President Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, and remains secular to this day, which is the underlying reason that the seminary remains closed.

However, this enforced closure has become a stumbling block to Turkey's entrance into the European Union. Recently two German legislators, Hermann Groehe and Armin Laschet, appealed to the Turkish government to re-open the venerated theological school (Mr. Groehe is an advisor to WEF's Religious Liberty Commission). The re-opening of this Christian seminary would demonstrate a Turkish commitment to their historical roots of religious tolerance.

Leader of Greek-Orthodox Christians Must Be Trained in Chalki

Berlin, June 18 (idea) -- Two German Christian Democrats have called for the re-opening of the Theological Seminary of Chalki, Turkey, which was closed 30 years ago. Armin Laschet (European MP, Brussels) and Hermann Groehe (German MP, Berlin) have written to the Turkish Government, the European Commission, and the German Government, explaining that a re-opening would demonstrate Turkey's willingness to protect religious minorities.

The seminary, located on Heybeli Island, belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church and serves to train the majority of their clergy. Their church law says that the spiritual leader of the 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide has to be a Turkish citizen and must be trained in Chalki. If the seminary remains closed, there will one day be no more clergy to fulfill this requirement.

In the opinion of the two Christian Democrats, the re-opening of the school, which had already been planned for 1997, would also facilitate Turkeys approach toward the European Union. The European Charter of Basic Rights, approved in Nice (France) in December 2000, explicitly guarantees religious freedom. Less than 0.2 per cent of Turkey's population are Christians.

(Report provided by Germany's evangelical news agency 'idea'; from the WEF Religious Liberty Commission E-mail Conference)