The following written report, recently featured by Public Orthodoxy, was presented by Archon Rocky Sisson, who together with Archon Hon. Steven G. Counelis, presented statements to the OSCE Conference held in Warsaw last month. Public Orthodoxy, is an editorial forum and project of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University, headed by Professor Archon George Demacopoulos and Professor Archon Telly Papanikolaou.
***Presented on behalf of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by Rocky Sisson to The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 2024 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting Warsaw, Poland.***
The eradication of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox community of Turkey would not only be an egregious violation of human rights, but it would also be a tremendous opportunity for Russia to expand its imperialism and global adventurism.
Turkey is providing Russia with a golden opportunity. The Turkish government’s longstanding hostility to ethnic and religious minorities is well documented, going back to the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides of a century ago. Today, that government is pursuing policies that will lead, in the not-too-distant-future, to the complete eradication of the historic Greek Orthodox Christian community, the indigenous people of Turkey.
Amid all this, the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are fighting to defend and protect the religious freedoms of our Holy and Great Mother Church.
One of the chief destructive policies of the Turkish government is the fact that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has no legal identity or bona fide legal personality in Turkey. This means that in terms of Turkish law, it does not exist. An entity that does not exist cannot own property—not even its churches or the sacred icons, including world-historical works of art, and holy relics that are housed in them.
Turkish authorities forced the closure of the Theological School of Halki, the primary source of new clergy for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in 1971. At the same time, it demands that the Ecumenical Patriarchate be a citizen of Turkey. Yet no new clergy can be trained in Turkey, and many who are sent abroad for training never return. The Turkish government’s goal is clear: it is trying to asphyxiate the Ecumenical Patriarchate and completely annihilate the Hellenic community in Asia Minor, which has been present there for millennia.
If the Turkish government forces the end of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s two-thousand-year-long presence in Constantinople, the chief beneficiaries will not be the Turks, but the Russians. Vladimir Putin is waging an unjust and unprovoked war against Ukraine, slaughtering wholesale his fellow Orthodox Christians, with the wholehearted approval of his accomplice, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
The Moscow Patriarchate has severed communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate over His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s important decision to grant autocephaly—independence—to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019.
If the Ecumenical Patriarchate is forced to leave Turkey, Russia is poised to take advantage. Putin and Kirill might establish a new, Russian Ecumenical Patriarchate, or simply claim for the Patriarchate of Moscow the canonical rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This would be part of Moscow’s efforts to secure control over the entire Orthodox Christian world, which would have far-reaching implications in both the geopolitical and religious spheres.
Accordingly, governments that are concerned about Russian expansionism and imperialism should make it a priority to work on multiple fronts to secure the presence and rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople.
We ask the members of the OCSE to:
Advocate for legal identity for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Advocate for the reopening of Halki.
Advocate to stop Russia’s ambitions in Turkey.
