Members of the worldwide ecumenical family have expressed support and solidarity to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople - today’s Istanbul - is facing growing hardships imposed by the Turkish judiciary.
On 26 June a ruling by Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals contested the ecumenical standing of the Patriarchate, stating that it is a religious body only authorised to perform religious functions for the Greek Orthodox minority in the country.The court also ruled that the Patriarchate does not have any legal personality and that the Patriarch is not allowed to bear the title “ecumenical”.
The ruling stated that the Patriarch as well as the Patriarchate officers are subject to Turkish law regarding their titles and activities. On 21 August, Bartholomew was summoned to testify before a prosecuting authority in Istanbul on his use of the title “Ecumenical” at a world conference of Orthodox youth that took place in the city a few weeks earlier.
In the face of these developments, on 27 August the Conference of European Churches (CEC) expressed its “strong support” for the right of the Patriarch to use of the title “Ecumenical”.
In a letter addressed to Bartholomew, CEC’s general secretary, the Venerable Colin Williams, wrote: “We could think of no other church leader in Europe who is so naturally recognised as a key figure in the ecumenical aspirations of the [continent’s] churches.”
On 29 August a similar letter addressed to Bartholomew by the World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, expressed the Council’s “whole-hearted appreciation of the authenticity and importance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an institution and the Ecumenical Patriarch as an office within the wider church world”.
In his letter, Kobia conveyed to the Patriarch the WCC’s “firm support” and reaffirmed Bartholomew’s “ecumenical standing” while cherishing his “leadership in the global ecumenical movement”.
