On December 26, 2024, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met, at his request, with the President of the Turkish Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the Presidential Palace in Ankara.
His All-Holiness raised the issue of the situation of Christians in Syria. He asked President Erdogan to exert all of his influence there in order to protect the life and safety of Christians and all religious minorities of Syria. His All-Holiness also referred to the close historical ties between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, which is centered in Damascus.
In a recent phone conversation with His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East, the Ecumenical Patriarch expressed, “on behalf of the Holy Church of Christ the Great and himself personally, his intense concern for the situation of the Hierarchy, the clergy and the people of the historic Church of Antioch, and his absolute support for it, for its safety and stability.”
In his meeting with President Erdogan, His All-Holiness also thanked the President for the order he gave for the reopening of the Halki Theological School, and requested that he speed up the relevant procedures required for the reopening. The President promised his help without any reservations.
During the meeting, the Ecumenical Patriarch and the President discussed the planned celebrations during the coming year for the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea in 325, and the arrival in Turkey of His Holiness Pope Francis in May to participate in the observances.
The Ecumenical Patriarch was accompanied to Ankara by His Eminence Geron Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, as well as by Archon Panteleimon Vingas, Grand Archivist of the Holy and Great Church and an active community advocate of the omogeneia.
