Rum Patrikanesi Ecumenical Patriarchate de facto legal status

There is guarded optimism following Turkey's decision to comply  with the ruling of the European Court. This decision to return the Orphanage which is located on the Island of the Princes to the Phanar comes on the heels of the Archons Religious Freedom Conference held in Brussles before the European Court. The public and official acknowledgment of the legitimate status of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In addition to returning the ceased Orphanage the land be registered to the “Rum Patrikanesi” which obviously and officially recognizes for the first time itsde facto legal status .

Now we look ahead for additional restitution of Patriarchal properties and all requests relating to other religious buildings and monasteries seized by the state.

for more visit:  http://www.archons.org/

Forum 18 News Service reports on 'Turkey: Syrian Orthodox land - All people are equal, but some are less equal than others?'

11/9/2010

Turkey's Mor Gabriel Syrian Orthodox Monastery in the Midyat (Tur Abdin) district faces five separate lawsuits contesting its right to its own property. Some of these cases are being brought by the government, and the state's actions suggest it wishes that the Monastery no longer existed.

79 Christian Graves desecrated in Imvros; Turkish Foreign Ministry quick to "strongly condemn"

11/2/2010

On October 28, 2010, seventy-eight (78) Christian graves were brutally desecrated in the graveyard of Panagia (Merkez or Imroz), the capital of the island of Imvros (Gokceada), in Turkey. Imvros is home to approximately 200 Greek Orthodox Christians and the birthplace of both His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the late Archbishop Iakovos of America.

"The minority foundations in Turkey and their role as cultural bridges," by Laki Vingas

10/13/2010

Somewhat untidily subsumed within the walls of the churches of Saint Dimitrios, patron saint of Thessaloniki, and of St George in the same city, are the remains of Jewish funeral monuments, Roman marbles, and Byzantine inscriptions. The Sinopi prison, on the Black Sea, is partially built with blocks of stone cut in the Roman era. It has been said that the magnificent mosque of Suleyman the Lawgiver, which stands imposingly over the Golden Horn, used stones taken from the church of Saint Effimia in Kadikoy.