Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara on Monday, with discussions focusing on the long-standing issue of reopening the Halki Theological School, issues concerning the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the remaining ethnic Greek minority in the country.
According to a statement from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the two sides reviewed ongoing discussions involving the Patriarchate, Turkey’s education ministry and the country’s higher education council regarding the future of the seminary, which has remained closed since 1971.
The Patriarchate said His All-Holiness Bartholomew and President Erdogan discussed issues concerning the Patriarchate and the Greek minority in Turkey, in what it described as a cordial atmosphere, with both sides expressing a willingness to maintain dialogue and cooperation.
Bartholomew was accompanied by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon and Bishop Kassianos of Arabissos, the abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity on Halki, where the closed theological school is located.
The reopening of the Halki Theological School remains one of the most significant unresolved issues affecting the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The seminary, located on Heybeliada (Halki) island in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, has been closed under Turkish legislation more than five decades. Successive Patriarchs, Greek governments and international religious-freedom advocates have called for its reopening, arguing that it is essential for the training of Orthodox clergy and the future functioning of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
