“The Patriarch, who has been able to remain on Turkish soil, is subject to the laws of the State. Therefore there are no legal foundations to accept the claims that the patriarchate is ecumenical”. With this ruling, a Turkish court upheld on Tuesday 26 June the position long defended by the government that repudiates the ecumenical character of the patriarchate of Constantinople and asserts that Patriarch Bartholomew I is solely the head of the small Greek-Orthodox community of the city and not the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox scattered all over the world. This decision does not impact on the status enjoyed by Patriarch Bartholomew outside Turkey where he is considered primus inter pares of Orthodox spiritual leaders, but it does reinforce the strong resistance of Turkey to any recognition of a wider role for Bartholomew. This resistance is linked to the fear that any such recognition would open the door to other claims by minority groups, in particular the Kurds who are fighting for greater self-determination. The Greek government, however, immediately came to the Patriarch’s defence. The Greek Foreign Minister made it known through his spokesman that the court’s decision would not alter the perception that Christians have of the patriarchate of Constantinople, since “the recognition of the ecumenical patriarch as spiritual head is profoundly rooted in the consciousness of millions of Christians, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, throughout the world and has been for many centuries”.
