Posted on 04/22/2009 5:16:44 AM PDT by Ravnagora
I bow in reverence before the age old achievements of the Great Church of Constantinople, and before her present cross which is neither small nor easy, which according to the nature of things, is the cross of the entire Church - for, as the Apostle says, "When one member suffers, the whole body suffers." Moreover, I acknowledge the canonical rank and first place in honor of Constantinople among the local Orthodox Churches, which are equal in honor and rights".
Archimandrite Justin Popovich
As news reports indicate, Mr. Barack Obama insulted the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I by stating that Greece must make concessions to the Muslims of Western Thrace in exchange for the opening of Halki. News reports indicate that Secretary Clinton told his eminence Archbishop Demetrios of North America the same thing. Such comments are disrespectful of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its history, and shamelessly tolerant of Turkey 's effort to turn Western Thrace into another Kosovo.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate's long history is well established and acknowledged by the civilized world. It is the Turkish leadership which fails to respect the institution, its history, and its "Primacy of honor" among Eastern Orthodox Churches. Turkey 's failure to acknowledge the Ecumenical Patriarchate is demonstrative of the racist and barbaric ideology of the Turkish paramilitary State. If Mr. Obama considers the little Muslim Mufti of Western Thrace to be of equal stature with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the throne upon which Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, John the Faster, Photius the Great, Michael Cerularius, George "Gennadius" Scholarius, Jeremiah II, and the martyred Gregory V sat on, then he is a profoundly ignorant man.
Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton have in effect endorsed Turkey 's Mafia style blackmail. Should the reopening of Halki be linked with concessions to the Muslims of Thrace, the Turks will establish a precedent to interfere in (and possibly invade in the name of protecting minority rights as they did in Cyprus ) Western Thrace. In addition, should Halki reopen at the present time, the Ecumenical Patriarchate will remain an enslaved institution subject to the same cruelty that has been policy since the Greek Orthodox of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace became the victims of the West's human sacrifice between 1922 and 1923.
By raising the issue of the Muslims of Western Thrace, Mr. Obama exposes the power of the Turkish lobby. There are 150,000 Greek Muslims thriving in Western Thrace . They elect representatives to Parliament and enjoy all the rights that citizens of the Hellenic Republic enjoy. Human Rights Watch has noted the Muslims who attend Greek Universities are the recipients of affirmative action programs. When I traveled to Constantinople in 1992, I visited the Balikli Monastery which contains the cemetery of the Ecumenical Patriarchs.
I observed an old man from outside enter the Church where he put on his "rasso" (cassock). He was a priest, but Kemalist Turkey forbids clerics from wearing their cassocks in public. This ban extends to clerics from outside Turkey as well. While in the Greek town of Alexandroupoli afterward I noticed the number of Muslim women in the town covered in Iranian style chadors from head to toe, with only their eyes visible. According to the Turkish propagandists and their apologists, Greece practices discrimination against the Muslims. Those Muslim women covered from head to toe are fortunate they did not live in Turkey where the Kemalists (followers of the Turkish nationalist-racist Mustafa Kemal) would have made their lives miserable by preventing them from attending Turkish Universities or working in the government.
According Demetrios Kaloumenos in his outstanding book, "The Crucifixion of Christianity" which includes graphic photos of the anti-Greek pogroms of September 1955, the son of one Muslim deputy in the Greek Parliament conspired with Turkish officials to bomb the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki , so as to lay the groundwork for the savagery that would erupt on September 6 against defenseless men, women, and children of Greek descent in Constantinople. The " Cyprus is Turkish" organization, a blatant terrorist group was heavily involved in the violence. Although eighty percent of the population in Cyprus was Greek, the Turks considered the entire island to be theirs regardless of the demographics. That is the racist mentality among Turkish leaders that served to bring about the Genocide of Armenians. Assyrians, and Greeks decades earlier in Anatolia . Native populations who have inhabited the same land for most of recorded history are no hindrance to Turkish expansion, they are exterminated plain and simple.
Mr. Obama suggested that if a Christian Seminary operates in a Muslim country, the same consideration should be given for Muslims in a Christian country. This is what Mr. Obama allegedly told the Ecumenical Patriarch. Therefore, the thriving Muslims of Greece are no different than the nearly decimated Greek community in Constantinople, Imbros, and Tenedos. Mr. Obama has chosen to ignore the six assassination plots against the Ecumenical Patriarch expressed through bombings and conspiracies of former Turkish Army officers. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I was ambushed by Barack Obama and the Turkish government during the ten minute meeting that took place in the Hotel in Constantinople, and was in no position to effectively counter the ambush.
One wonders what the late Archbishop of Greece Christodoulos would have said had any foreign leader made comparable comments to him about Thrace. The Bishops of the Orthodox Church of Greece are free and not dependent on any secular ruler for survival. Greeks throughout the world should respond to any proposals that link Halki and the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the Muslims of Thrace by emulating Ioannis Metaxas and Tassos Papadopoulos and declare OHI!!!! The OHI (meaning No) of General Metaxas in 1940 was in response to the Italians who demanded that they be permitted to enter the sovereign Greek State , and the later OHI of Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos was in response to the international bullying of the Cypriot Republic to accept the racist plan for Cyprus that was put forward by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
If this necessitates the removal of the Ecumenical Patriarchate from Constantinople, so be it. Greek Orthodox Christians should not settle for anything less than for an Ecumenical Patriarchate that is free. Tragically, it appears at this moment that no settlement is possible that would permit the Patriarch to remain in the Queen of the Cities without compromising the security interests of Greece . What is most important now is for Greece and Cyprus , and their respective Churches to maintain the best possible relations with the government and Church of Russia.
The Greek Churches which include the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, along with those of Greece and Cyprus have excellent relations with the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow. To his great credit, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I repaired his relations with Moscow before the death of Russian Patriarch Alexy II in December. Russia is the largest Orthodox country in the world and has the largest Orthodox population. Moscow 's position as the center of Eastern Orthodoxy is becoming a likelihood.
The anti-Hellenic policies of the Obama administration are irrefutable. Obama's rush to Turkey to beg the tyrants to stay in the Western camp, the outrageous statements made about Western Thrace, and Hillary Clinton's reported meeting with Turkey 's appointed ruler in the occupied territories of Cyprus do not bode well for Hellenism in the short term. Greece 's warming relations with Russia over the past several years are a step in the right direction.
Theodoros Karakostas is Founder of the Byzantine Cultural Project.
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“Greece must say OHI ...”
Is that code?
Is that code?
"OHI" means "NO!"
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Thank you. Pat and I are in our 4th Greek workbook, but have not yet learned “yes” and “no.” Good thing we weren’t planning to converse with Greeks any time soon!
That'll do it every time.
The onetime the man should have remembered that this particular conflict is "above his paygrade" he opened what should have a shut mouth.
I'd like to take this moment to apologize to any Greeks or Turks for the ignorance and stupidity of our President, but I can't.
If anything you can imagine how difficult it is here to deal with his daily insults and catcalls ~ the man has no self-control, and his ignorance is exceeded only by his own sense of self-importance.
Please be patient until our next election.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a Halki and why do the Greeks need US approval to open it?
Halki is the name of the centuries-old seminary on an island off the coast of Asia Minor (”Turkey”) for training priests for the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Thank you very much. Now, why does the USA have any say whatsoever at all about where, when, how and under what circumstances the Greeks may or may not open a seminary?
It is the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s seminary, and it is the Turkish goverment that must approve its reopening.
The ‘model’ Muslim country of Turkey, unfortunately is a model for the sort of pro-Islamic secularism that we see spreading throughout the West: their secularism is more anti-Christian than it is secular. Except for the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Grand Mufti no cleric can wear clerical dress outside of a church or mosque, but facilities for training imams have not all been closed, while the only Orthodox seminary is. Kind of like ‘secular’ college or universities here in the States that put in Muslim footbaths, but hound Christian student groups off campus.
If it is the Turkish government that must approve its reopening, why is the USA getting involved? What business is it of ours?
Is the Usurper planning another Kosovo style bombing of the Christian Greeks to help the muslim Turks gain prominence?
“Is the Usurper planning another Kosovo style bombing of the Christian Greeks to help the muslim Turks gain prominence?”
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. I believe he is totally capable of that “Alinsky” type action.
Like Ambassador Keyes, I believe Obama will try something illegal to initiate a declaration of martial law and suspension of Congress and the Courts. Something like what happenned in 1955: “...the son of one Muslim deputy in the Greek Parliament conspired with Turkish officials to bomb the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki , so as to lay the groundwork for the savagery that would erupt on September 6 against defenseless men, women, and children of Greek descent in Constantinople.”
It is just a matter of time before Obama tries something desperate to establish a dictatorship.
Since the first Church Council in Nicea in 325AD, the Holy Sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were established as the Christian Church's government of the known world. Now due to to temporal politics -- the spread of Islam and the will of flawed & suicidal US foreign policy -- they are supposed to change that and move "Constantinople" to Russia?
You don't have to be Orthodox to understand that this is about "The history of the Christian Church" -- not just "a church" or "a religion" -- but the historical roots of all the churches in Christendom.
What's next? Moving Rome & the Vatican to Greenland because Muslims want more Roman real estate?
Greek ping for comment on Karakostas’s excellent opinion piece
If the Americans of Greek extraction would only stand together, as well as all those others whose ancestors were abused, beaten, enslaved, raped, looted, plundered and massacred by these brigands from the steppes of Central Asia, and their minions in North Africa, our Turkish policies would reflect reality under a future President.
As for this guy, he has been bought, sold and paid for by foreign interests of questionable virtue - most probably the Saudis and other Islamics. He will never listen to reason. Only removing him from office over his treasonous acts via impeachment after 2010 will rectify the damage he has created.
TURKEY OUT OF CONSTANTIOPLE - OUT OF HAGIA SOPHIA!!!!
Just say "OHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Well, when you do learn how to say it, make sure you UNlearn how to say yes and no with your head. Shaking your head (which means "no" in the west) means YES in Greek! And nodding your head means "no!" Just in case... :)
Now that’s useful information - thanks!
With all due respect to many a Protestant individual who defends our side, the sad fact is that the Anglo-Saxon Protestant West has and always will take the Muslim side over Eastern (Orthodox) Christians. Obama and Clinton have shown their true colors. Phanar is too weak, and the sharks can smell it. At this point the only true hope of a steadfast Orthodox position (and protection) can come from the Moscow Patriarchy. The rest of the Orthodox world is left to subserviance and/or outright persecution.
Glad you think so. The Greek word for "yes" is — nai, and you say that while shaking your head! Don't go to any bars in Greece...you can't claim that "no means no." :)
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