Istambul Mass

Pope Benedict XVI is helped by Archbishop Piero Marini Master of the Liturgical Celebrations during a mass celebrated at Istanbul's Holy Spirit Cathedral during the last day of his four-day visit to Turkey, Friday, Dec. 1, 2006

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The Pope -- celebrating Mass for members of Turkey's tiny Roman Catholic community a day after a stunning moment of prayer at a mosque -- also repeated his call to end divisions among the world's Christians.
"You know well that the church wishes to impose nothing on anyone, and that she merely asks to live in freedom,'' the Pope said at Istanbul's Holy Spirit Cathedral, where he was joined by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.
The Pope has worked hard during the four-day trip to convince the Muslim world that he is interested in co-operation rather than confrontation, nearly three months after touching off worldwide fury for his remarks on violence and the Prophet Muhammad.
But Benedict also has made it clear he expects Islamic countries to improve rights and protections for Christian minorities, including the estimated 90,000 Christians in Turkey whose religious roots go back to biblical times.
"Your communities walk the humble path of daily companionship with those who do not share our faith,'' the Pope told the congregation filling the 160-year-old cathedral.
In the courtyard, the Pope released several white doves near a statue of the First-World-War-era pontiff that inspired his papal name, Benedict XV, which was erected by Turkey in honour of that pope's work "as a benefactor of all people, regardless of nation or creed.''
The Pope noted that his predecessor, John Paul II, spoke at the same site in 1979 and appealed for unity among Christians, particularly ending the nearly 1,000-year rift between the Vatican and the world's Orthodox.
Strengthening Christian bonds should be "at the forefront,'' Benedict told the congregation.
A day earlier, the Pope joined Bartholomew at a feast day ceremony in the ancient Orthodox enclave in Istanbul, which was known as the Christian capital Constantinople before the city fell to Muslim forces in 1453. The Pope called splits among Christians "a scandal to the world.''

Patriarch on the Divine Litugy

From the homily of His Holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew I at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Saint George in Istanbul:

Every celebration of the Divine Liturgy is a powerful and inspiring con-celebration of heaven and of history. Every Divine Liturgy is both an anamnesis of the past and an anticipation of the Kingdom. We are convinced that during this Divine Liturgy, we have once again been transferred spiritually in three directions: toward the kingdom of heaven where the angels celebrate; toward the celebration of the liturgy through the centuries; and toward the heavenly kingdom to come.
This overwhelming continuity with heaven as well as with history means that the Orthodox liturgy is the mystical experience and profound conviction that "Christ is and ever shall be in our midst!" For in Christ, there is a deep connection between past, present, and future. In this way, the liturgy is more than merely the recollection of Christ's words and acts. It is the realization of the very presence of Christ Himself, who has promised to be wherever two or three are gathered in His name.

At the Blue Mosque

Shoeless Pope meditates in silence in the Blue Mosque
Pictues from BBC website

Pope meets Armenians

Pope recalls Armenian genocide
Istanbul, Nov. 30, 2006 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) brought up the sensitive topic of the Armenian genocide-- although he did not mention it explicitly-- during a November 30 meeting with the Armenian Apostolic Patriarch of Istanbul, Mesrob II.
In his greeting to the patriarch, the Holy Father praised the Armenian people for their faithful witness to the Gospel, even under "truly tragic conditions, like those experienced in the past century." He was clearly alluding to the slaughter of Armenians under the Ottoman empire.
To this day the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the genocidal campaign of 1915- 1917, in which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed during massacres and forced marches, as the government of the "Young Turks" forced the relocation of an entire people. The Armenian Apostolic Church remains the largest Christian community in Turkey, but today numbers only about 50,000 faithful; in the late 19th century the number was several million. There are about 2 million members of the Church living in the country now known as Armenia.
In his remarks to Patriarch Mesrob, the Pope expressed regret over the divisions among the Christian faithful, repeating what he had said to the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew: that these divisions are "a scandal to the world" and a handicap to effective evangelization.
The Armenian Apostolic Church dates back to the year 506, when the Christian leaders of the region broke away from the Catholic Church over disagreements with the doctrines put forth by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Those theological disputes have been resolved, and in 1996 Pope John Paul II (bio - news) and the former head of the Armenian Church, Karekin I, jointly signed a document affirming that the two churches have reached accord on the Christological issues that originally caused their separation.
Pope Benedict joined with the Armenian patriarch in a prayer service at the Armenian cathedral in Istanbul. Later he would meet with the city's grand rabbi, then end the day at a dinner with the Catholic bishops of Turkey.



Before I found the above...
I was looking for something on the Pope's meeting with the Patriarch of the Armenians, I found this rather chilling piece on Rorate Caeli.



From some famous exchanges between Turkish Interior Minister, Mehmet Talaat Pasha (soon to be one of the last Ottoman Grand Viziers, Talaat was one of the leaders of the "Young Turks" and an architect of the Armenian Genocide), with American Ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, in 1915 (in "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story", by Henry Morgenthau):



"...I have asked you to come here", Talaat said, "so as to let you know that our Armenian policy is absolutely fixed and that nothing can change it. We will not have the Armenians anywhere in Anatolia. They can live in the desert, but nowhere else.


"I still attempted to persuade Talaat that the treatment of the Armenians was destroying Turkey in the eyes of the world, and that his country would never be able to recover from this infamy.


"You are making a terrible mistake," I said, and I repeated the statement three times.


"Yes, we may make mistakes," he replied, "but" -- and he firmly closed his lips and shook his head -- "we never regret."


...One day Talaat made what was perhaps the most astonishing request I had ever heard. The New York Life Insurance Company and the Equitable Life of New York had for years done considerable business among the Armenians. The extent to which this people insured their lives was merely another indication of their thrifty habits.


"I wish," Talaat now said, "that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?"


This was almost too much, and I lost my temper."You will get no such list from me," I said, and I got up and left him.





The only thing that has rather saddened me about the Papal vist was the Holy Father laying a wreathe on the ugly tomb of Kemel Ataturk. He stands alongside Hitler and Stalin as one of the dictators of the 20th century, his writings are as frightening as anything in Mein Kampf.
I suppose the poor Pope would not have got in if didn't do it.

Pope arrives in Istanbul

POPE Benedict XVI arrived today in Istanbul, the final stop of his four-day trip to Turkey, after celebrating his first mass on Muslim soil in the historic western city of Ephesus.
The pontiff was met at the airport by Bartholomew I, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, as well as Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II and Syriac Patriarchal Vicar Filuk.
Benedict was to hold talks later with Bartholomew I in his quest for rapprochement between Christianity's Eastern and Western rites, estranged for nearly 1000 years.


Welcome by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI After the Prayer Service at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George
Your Holiness, beloved Brother in the Lord,
It is with sentiments of sincere joy and satisfaction that we welcome you to the sacred and historical city of Istanbul.
This is a city that has known a treasured heritage for the growth of the Church through the ages. It is here that St. Andrew, the "first-called" of the Apostles founded the local Church of Byzantium and installed St. Stachys as its first bishop. It is here that the Emperor and "equal-to-the-Apostles," St. Constantine the Great, established the New Rome. It is here that the Great Councils of the early Church convened to formulate the Symbol of Faith. It is here that martyrs and saints, bishops and monks, theologians and teachers, together with a “cloud of witnesses” confessed what the prophets saw, what the apostles taught, what the church received, what the teachers formulated in doctrine, what the world understood, what grace has shone, namely…the truth that was received, the faith of the fathers. This is the faith of the Orthodox. This faith has established the universe.
So it is with open embrace that we welcome you on the blessed occasion of your first visit to the City, just as our predecessors, Ecumenical Patriarchs Athenagoras and Demetrios, had welcomed your predecessors, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. These venerable men of the Church sensed the inestimable value and urgent need alike of such encounters in the process of reconciliation through a dialogue of love and truth.
Therefore, we are, both of us, as their successors and as successors to the Thrones of Rome and New Rome equally accountable for the steps - just, of course, as we are for any missteps - along the journey and in our struggle to obey the command of our Lord, that His disciples "may be one."
It was in this spirit that, by the grace of God, we visited repeatedly Rome and two years ago in order to accompany the relics of Saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, formerly Archbishops of this City, whose sacred remains were generously returned to this Patriarchal Cathedral by the late Pope. It was in this spirit, too, that we traveled to Rome only months later to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul.
We are deeply grateful to God that Your Holiness has taken similar steps today in the same spirit. We offer thanks to God in doxology and express thanks also to Your Holiness in fraternal love.
Beloved Brother, welcome. "Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord."
"Blessed is the Name of the Lord now and forevermore."

Ephesus Mass

The Holy Father celebrated Mass at the house of the Blessed Virgin Mary near Ephesus attended by 250 specially invioted guests.
During the Mass the Pope recalled the example of Father Andrea Santorole, who was killed by Turkish youth whilst at prayer in his Church.

Freedom!

Allen:
Yet in his later address to the diplomatic corps in Turkey, Benedict returned to the two themes which have formed the core of his message to Muslims: the need to reject terrorism, and the need for “reciprocity,” meaning religious freedom.
“The civil authorities of every democratic country are duty bound to guarantee the effective freedom of all believers and to permit them to organize freely the life of their religious communities,” he said. “I am certain that religious liberty is a fundamental expression of human liberty and that the active presence of religions in society is a source of progress and enrichment for all.”
It’s noteworthy that Benedict chose to raise the religious freedom issue in his meeting with ambassadors rather than at the Religious Affairs Directorate, where it might have seemed a more direct compliant about his host nation.
Turkey’s tiny Christian population (roughly 100,000 in a country of TK million) suffers under a variety of restrictions, both de jure and de facto. Perhaps most notably, the Patriarch of Constantinople has been unable to train his own clergy at the historic Halki Seminary, which has been closed by order of the Turksih government since 1971.
Benedict also issued a clear warning that religions should shun direct political power, a point with special relevance in a country that features several Islamic political parties, and insisted that religious leaders must “utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of religion.”
In some ways, Benedict appeared to echo some of the warnings he and his predecessor, John Paul II, have issued to former states of the Soviet sphere now making their way into the EU, namely to avoid an exaggerated secularism that would assign religion to a purely private sphere.
In the context of both European and Turkish debates over secularism, Benedict affirmed the legitimacy of church/state separation, but argued that religious believers nevertheless have a legitimate political contribution to make in defense of human dignity, especially of the most vulnerable.

h/t welborne

Pope at "Ministry" of Religion

ANKARA, Turkey: Guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday following meetings with the Islamic cleric who oversees Turkey's religious affairs.
The comments by the pontiff could be reinforced later during the four-day visit when the pope meets in Istanbul with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.
The pope is expected to call for greater rights and protections for Christian minorities in the Muslim world, including the tiny Greek Orthodox community in Turkey.
"Freedom of religion, institutionally guaranteed and effectively respected in practice, both for individuals and communities, constitutes for all believers the necessary condition for their loyal contribution to the building up of society," the pope said following talks with Ali Bardakoglu.

Benedict has made religious freedom one of the centerpieces of his papacy, and has complained about countries denying full rights to Christians.

Ali Bardakoglu, secular Turkey's top religious official, who had slammed the pontiff for his remarks on Islam in September.

The Pope quoted 11th-century Pope Gregory VII after a north African Muslim prince "acted with great benevolence towards the Christians under his jurisdiction."
"Pope Gregory spoke of the particular charity that Christians and Muslims owe to one another 'because we believe in one God, albeit in a different manner, and because we praise him and worship him every day as the creator and ruler of the world'," he said.
But Bardakoglu, who had had harsh words for the pontiff's remarks in September, showed in his speech that Benedict's words were not completely forgotten.
"Islamophobia," he said, "is gradually increasing."
He blamed this on a "mentality that Islam, with its history and origins, contains and encourages violence, that it was spread... by the sword, that Muslims are potentially violent."
"Those who perform erroneous acts in the name of religion by exploiting religion" are at the source of such claims, Bardakoglu said.
"We religious leaders must refuse to be instruments of the tensions of international politics and should contribute to the solution of social problems," Bardakoglu said.
The two men were addressing reporters after a short closed-door meeting with their respective delegations, itself preceded by an off-the-cuff, 15-minute chat in front of television cameras during which they exchanged gifts.
"Religions are for peace and reconciliation -- they should not be interpreted otherwise," the pope said during the chat.
Bardakoglu, the director of religious affairs, had accused Benedict of harboring "hatred in his heart" for Muslims after the leader of the Roman Catholic Church appeared to link Islam with violence.
In an interview Monday, Bardakoglu said the pope's four-day visit to Turkey, although "a step in the right direction," would not suffice to heal the hurt his comments had caused.

Turkey: a bridge

Pope Benedict XVI said on his arrival that Turkey is a bridge between religions and he appealed for solidarity between cultures in his first remarks after arriving in the predominantly Muslim nation.
"I really wanted to come to Turkey because Turkey has become a bridge . . . between the religions," Benedict told Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who greeted him at the airport. The pope spoke in Italian and an interpreter translated his comments into Turkish.
"It is a democratic, Islamic country and a bridge," the pope said. "I wanted to come to Turkey since becoming pope because I love this culture."
"I want to reiterate the solidarity between the cultures," Benedict said. "This is our duty."
Benedict began a four-day visit to Turkey, where he will seek to ease anger over his perceived criticism of Islam and mend a split with the world's Orthodox Christians.

CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR THIS VISIT

Turkish Stranglehold on the Patriarchate

from Newsweek George Weigel

The Turkish government closed the patriarchate's seminary, the Theological School of Halki, in 1971, and has refused, despite numerous requests, to reopen it.
Turkey will not grant the Ecumenical Patriarchate legal "personality," in defiance of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, which defined the legal position of minorities in Turkey; this refusal to deal with the patriarchate as a legal "person" (as churches are regarded throughout the West) is, according to the patriarchate memo, "a major source of many other problems." For to deny that the patriarchate is a legal entity with certain rights, an entity that can work with the Turkish government within the framework of the law, means that all issues between the patriarchate and the state become political issues, subject to political pressures and counterpressures—especially problematic, since less than one tenth of 1 percent of the Turkish population is Orthodox.
The Turkish government blocks work permits for non-Turkish citizens who wish to work at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, such that the 10 Greek clergymen, one American layman and one British layman now working at the Phanar are doing so illegally, and must leave the country every three months to renew their tourist visas.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate is not permitted to own property; thus it owns none of the churches under its religious jurisdiction. Turkish authorities have also confiscated houses, apartment buildings, schools, monasteries and lands that were once owned by the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the state seized the patriarchate's 36 cemeteries, which are now the property of various legal subdivisions of the city of Istanbul; and, earlier this year, the state confiscated the boys' orphanage run by the patriarchate (which is the oldest wooden building in Europe and of great historical value).
The Turkish government also determines who may teach in the elementary schools that serve the Orthodox community, and enforces a six-year "approval" process to control the flow of books to Orthodox school libraries.
No Christian community in the West would tolerate such conditions, which involve violations of basic human rights

Background to Turkey

There is some very good stuff on Against the Grain on the Papal visit to Turkey.
It is plain that the Pope is going to a place where he is hated as is the Ecumenical Patriarch, the placard shows the Pope and the Patriarch as a double headed serpent on an Orthodox crozier. The book is the current Turkish bestseller about the assassination of the Pope.
It is important we pray, and pray hard for the Pope's safety and for the success of the vist.

Brighton Turkish Torture Victim

A Kurdish father, a former torture victim, is distraught at the prospect of being deported on Wednesday without his child. The man’s son was not at their Brighton address when the immigration service raided it on Monday, and his whereabouts now are unknown, but the Home Office still insists the father must be forcibly removed from Britain.
Ekrem Ovunc, 41, has been refused asylum, although British doctors have confirmed he has physical injuries and scarring consistent with torture. His grandfather, father and uncle were both killed by the Turkish authorities, and he is terrified of being returned; like many in Turkey’s Kurdish minority, he fears he will face further arrest and imprisonment for his ethnicity and believed political sympathies.
He was first arrested and tortured in Turkey after, he says, handing out leaflets in support of the Kurdish independence organisation, PKK. He escaped to Britain in 2000 and has received medication and counselling for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. following four separate arrests and periods of torture which, he says, included electric shocks, cold water torture and solitary confinement.
His asylum claim was rejected, however, because the immigration service did not accept that he had a “well-founded fear of persecution”, or would have to live in the south east of Turkey where, “The Secrteary of State…accepts that the conflict has cost many thousands of lives, including those of non-combatants.”
Turkey’s continuing poor record on human rights is a key reason that Britain wants to delay its accession to the EU.
Reports by charities such as Amnesty International and Asylum Aid have also confirmed that Kurdish deportees to Turkey have faced imprisonment and further maltreatment.
The father and son, Ibrahim, 17, who was attending a Brighton school, were forcibly detained at an immigration holding centre for three weeks this March, and told upon release that they would imminently be deported. His pastoral tutor at the Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College, where Ibrahim was studying, confirms that his attendance and concentration seriously deteriorated following their detention.
Ms Jacy Marks wrote that his previously “excellent progress” stalled, and the “polite, well mannered and helpful” boy became “withdrawn, disengaged
and very precoccupied”, due to his “extreme concern over his uncertain future and detention.”
The boy became so afraid of another dawn raid and deportation that he started to stay out at night, sleeping rough or with friends. It is not known where he was when their lodgings were raided on Monday.
His father’s doctor, Dr Steadman, and psychiatrist Dr denise Bound, informed the immigration service that their patient had been suicidal when he arrived in Britain, and his despair was consistent with the terrible experiences he described. He was for a time placed in psychiatric intensive care, to protect him from suicide. Dr Steadman believed there was a “high risk of suicide” now, if he were deported, and that it would be “inhuman and degrading” to return him to the country where he had been persecuted. Campaigners are calling for the Home Office to halt the deportation and allow this vulnerable father and son to remain in Britain.

Turkish nationalist paper accuses Bartholomew and Benedict XVI

The patriarch is accused of monopolising the event’s TV coverage and the Istanbul press room even though the Patriarchate’s involvement in this aspect of the visit’s organisation is due to a lack of interest by Turkish authorities.
Ankara (AsiaNews) – In the latest in a series of actions taken by Turkey’s religious-nationalist camp against the visit by the Pontiff to that country on November 28-December 1, a photo is travelling the net showing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Pope Benedict XVI with the caption saying: “The alliance between the two Christian leaders attacks Islam”.
Tercüman, a nationalist daily, has gone a step further and published the photo on its front page. In large fonts, the title and subtitle respectively say: “Here is Sir Patriarch” and “He attacked Turkey’s power by allowing the Hilton Hotel to be turned into a church for journalists coming for the Pope.”
In the article, the paper denigrates the Ecumenical Patriarch accusing him of being “power-hungry”, daring to “bypass for a second time” the Turkish government by imposing the invitation to the Pope and his visit.
Two years ago Bartholomew I personally invited the Pope to Turkey for the Feast Day of St Andrew (November 30). The Turkish government did not join its (necessary) invitation to that made by the Patriarch until this year.
The Turkish paper accuses the Patriarch of wanting to create a “state within a state”, but most seriously charges Bartholomew I of giving exclusive worldwide TV rights to the Patriarchate itself (hence to Greek channels). To make matters worse, all telephone and internet lines will depend on the Patriarchate, not the Turkish state. This means that the Directorate General of Press and Information (BYEGM) will be excluded and have no say in the matter.
In fact, the article’s author writes that even Turkish news media will have to get accreditation with the Patriarchate and use the services made available to them in a press room, set up for the occasion in Istanbul’ Hotel Hilton by the Patriarchate itself.
For many Turks this represents a loss of authority, whilst for the Greek Orthodox patriarch it is a matter of freedom. The reason is that until now the Turkish media have shown no interest in the event, there is no "newsroom" in both Ankara and Ephesus the other places of the visit.