FOXNews.com - Bartholomew I Holds Great Sway in Turkey

Bartholomew I Holds Great Sway in Turkey

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

By BRIAN MURPHY, AP Religion Writer

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ISTANBUL, Turkey — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is the spiritual leader of the world's more than 250 million Orthodox Christians and is often called the "first among equals" of the Orthodox religious leaders.

He has no direct authority over the various autonomous Orthodox churches, which are mostly broken down along national and cultural lines. But Bartholomew carries great sway as caretaker of Orthodox spirituality in Istanbul, which was the capital of the Christian Byzantium and known as Constantinople before the city fell to Muslim armies in 1453.

The Orthodox branch of Christianity _ centered largely in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia _ split from the Vatican nearly 1,000 years ago amid disputes that included the extent of papal authority. Smaller Orthodox communities can be found throughout the world, notably in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Australia and North America.

Bartholomew, 66, was born on the Turkish island of Gokceada, known as Imvros by Greeks, and became a deacon in 1961 and a priest in 1969. He was elected as ecumenical patriarch in 1991.

He has led many religious-based initiatives, including environmental trips to focus attention on the state of the world's seas and rivers. Those excursions, which bring together religious leaders, scientists and researchers aboard ships, have earned him the nickname "the Green Patriarch."

Bartholomew also has fostered talks between Muslims and Roman Catholics aimed at improving relations between the groups, and has been a strong supporter of expanding Orthodox ties with the Vatican.

Bartholomew's role, however, is complicated by Turkish views that reject his global status and declare him only the head of the tiny Greek Orthodox community in Turkey. He has also pressed Turkish authorities to change rules governing non-Muslim religious institutions that led to the closure of a Greek Orthodox seminary near Istanbul more than 20 years ago.

Turkey requires that the patriarch be a Turkish citizen, which has sharply limited the pool of potential successors because of the dwindling Orthodox population in Turkey. There are an estimated 2,000 Greek Orthodox among Turkey's nearly 90,000 Christians, which include about 65,000 Armenians and 20,000 Roman Catholics.