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Turkey Policies on Minorities Spark Debate Fri Dec 3, 1:50 PM ET Middle East - AP By JAMES C. HELICKE, Associated Press Writer ISTANBUL, Turkey - A furor in Turkey ignited by the title of a Christian spiritual leader on a U.S. embassy invitation has underscored concerns about the largely Muslim country's treatment of minorities two weeks before the European Union (news - web sites) decides whether to open membership talks with Ankara. The problem revolved around the status of the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, a Turkish citizen and ethnic Greek. He is...

There was a dose of commiseration and some quiet lamenting about a presidential election lost, but the focus of the people crowded into a Beacon Hill home last night was what they can do now. Or, as Seattle lawyer Randy Gordon put it: "How to take the positive energy of engagement and enragement and move forward." The "house party" was one of dozens in the Seattle area and thousands held simultaneously across the country that were organized by MoveOn, a fast-growing political-action group aimed at getting "moderate to progressive" candidates into office. Key issues, from the Iraq war to same-sex...

When Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visited Cuba in late January, he followed a script written in the 1970s. We might call this the Fidel Castro scenario: Invite a prominent Church leader to take part in a public show of religious tolerance in order to mask the fundamentally anti-religious policies of the Cuban dictator’s regime. When the Patriarch consecrated an Orthodox Church that closed when Communism was imposed on Cuba, he barely whispered a word about Castro’s human right abuses. The first clue that something was amiss with the Patriarch’s Cuba trip was that the National Council of Churches (NCC) “happened” to...

HAVANA (AP) - Communist Cuba, once officially atheist, is rolling out the red carpet for the spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians - and even built the Byzantine cathedral he was consecrating on Sunday. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, head of the Greek Orthodox church and leader of the world's 14 Orthodox patriarchs, was to consecrate the St. Nicholas cathedral in Old Havana during an hours-long ceremony in liturgical Greek beginning Sunday morning. It was unclear why President Fidel Castro agreed to finance the church's construction, but Cuban authorities have been trying to demonstrate that the communist government...

HAVANA - The spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians will honor Fidel Castro with the church's Order of St. Andrew the Apostle during his visit next week, event organizers said Friday. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will present the honor to thank Castro for his government's construction of the church's new St. Nicholas Cathedral, to be consecrated by the patriarch on Jan. 25, regional church leaders told a news conference. Bartholomew will be the first Orthodox Christian patriarch ever to visit Latin America, said Metropolitan Athenagoras of Panama and Central America, equivalent of archbishop for a region that includes...

QUESTION: Does the KJV contain contradictions about who are the 12 apostles?