Working to Re-open the Halki Seminary in Turkey
by
Pave The Way Foundation | Jul 27, 2016
In 1971, the Turkish government closed the Halki seminary (Heybeliada), the oldest and most important religious educational institution in the Christian Orthodox Church, creating a grave crisis.
This followed earlier Turkish Government decrees affecting the Patriarchate, including a requirement that the Patriarch must be a Turkish citizen and that the Turkish Government can veto the election of a new Patriarch. Previous Turkish Governments had objected to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople exercising his rights as the spiritual leader of more than 300 million Christian Orthodox faithful (the second largest Christian denomination in the world.) The government tried to restrict his leadership to only the tiny Orthodox community that exists in Turkey and confiscated Church properties in Turkey. This was a reversal of several centuries of much greater tolerance.
Although Turkey is an Islamic country, the government closed all Muslim schools as well, in an effort to secularize the school system. As the only Christian Orthodox seminary in Turkey Halki, was closed as “collateral damage.”
In May 2012, Pave the Way Foundation sent 5 letters to the Turkish government advancing a Muslim request for Halki’ s reopening, along with its religious justification. The request was based on a Covenant of Protection for the “people of the book” (a term used to describe Jews and Christians) guaranteed by the hand-printed signature of the Prophet Muhammad in 628 AD. The Prophet Muhammed, through his covenant, guarantees Islamic protection of Christians and their churches from all of his followers until the end of time.
Our letters were received by the Prime Minister, the President, the Ambassadors to the United Nations, the United States and the European Union in May, 2012. We were told that our request was being looked upon very favorable. On July 5, 2012, Professor Mehmet Gormez, the highest Muslim authority in Turkey, made an unprecedented, historical visit to Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I. On that day, he embraced the Patriarch and called for the reopening of the Halki seminary in the name of Islam and stated:
“As the Religious Affairs Directorate, we see non-Muslim citizens living in Turkey as an integral part of this country. Regarding religious freedoms — freedom of religion, freedom to receive an education and the sacredness of places of worship — we demand for them the same rights that we demand for ourselves. We think it is a fundamental right for people from every ethnicity and religion not only in our country but also in every part of the world to practice their religion freely, educate their children in accordance with their beliefs and raise their own theologians,”
With the intercession of His Beatitude, Theophilos III, PTWF was able to obtain two more manuscripts reaffirming Muhammad’s order to protect the Christians and their Churches until the end of days. Special gratitude to Dr. Nicholas Fyssas, Supervisor of the Sinaitic Archive of Monuments, Mount Sinai Foundation.
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