Around 1,000 ultra-nationalist Turks protested outside the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church here Sunday, Turkish media reported, accusing it of interfering in Turkey's political affairs. The protesters, called out by the youth movement of the Party for Nationalist Action (MHP), hurled stones at riot police before being subdued by tear gas and truncheons. Pictures showed the protesters burning an effigy of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, head of the northern Greek Orthodox church, and hanging him from a tree. The Istanbul patriarchate, the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church is the last vestige of the medieval Byzantine empire which modern Greeks still revere. The patriarchate has been pressuring Ankara for years to reopen a century-old seminary on the island of Heybeliada (Halki in Greek) off Istanbul, which was closed in 1971 during Greek-Turk tensions over Cyprus. The European Union, critical of Turkey for failing to ensure the religious freedoms of non-Muslim minorities, is closely watching how Ankara is handling the requests for the reopening of the school. The United States also supports the school's reopening. A spokesman for the protesters said that Turkey had given in to the European Union and the United States over the patriarchate. The Turkish government, keen to increase its prospects for joining the EU, has made it clear in the last year that it is considering reopening the religious school.
|