The Turkish orthodoxe Church , Turkish orthodoxe Church karamanli or orthodoxe Église of Turkey is a orthodoxe Église noncanonical. The chief of the Church carries the title of Patriarche (Turkish Patrik) and resides at Istanbul (without holder today).
Foundation
With the right in the middle of the " war of liberation nationale" (1919 - 1922) carried out by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the allied powers and mainly against the Greece, an orthodoxe Turkish Patriarchate was set up. The government of Ankara placed at its head an orthodoxe Greek pope (speaking the dialect gréco-Turkish Karamanli or Cappadocien) of Kayseri), Pavlos Karahisarithis (1884 - March 14th 1968. Member of a known family of the area of Kara-Hisar, in favor of the turcisation of the Christians of Anatolia (to avoid their expulsion), it turquifié his name in Pavli Eftim Erenerol Karahisaroglu. For the movement kemalist, turciser the orthodoxe Christians of Turkey was to withdraw them from the influence of the oecumenical Patriarche of Constantinople, considered as a Fifth column with the service of the Greek enemy. Let us note that at the time, the minor Asia counted 1,5 million orthodoxe Greeks (without counting Assyrian, chaldéens, Armenians, etc). In full war with the Greece, the kemalists had all the reasons to divide this community.In this context, a council of 72 monks joined together in November 1921 with Césarée (Kayseri) declares the 21 September 1922 the establishment of this Church, under the official name of orthodoxe Turkish independent Patriarcat . The new Church claimed to represent more than 400.000 orthodoxe Turkish-speaking living in the area of Cappadoce. The métropolite Prokopios was named “patriarchal vicar” and a Holy synod made up of 12 bishops was founded. Turkish was adopted like liturgical language. In January 1923, with the support of the government of Ankara, Pavli Eftim is established patriarch under the name of Baba Eftim or Papa Eftim (in Greek: Dad Efthimiou ), this whereas the married priests cannot normally become prelates in the orthodoxe churches.
The community published a newspaper entitled Anadolu' da Ortodoksluk Sadasi (the voice of orthodoxy in Anatolia), whose only 16 numbers were published between July 1922 and February 1923.
During the negotiations which led to the Traité of Lausanne of July 24th 1923, the Turkish government used the Turkish orthodoxe Church to show with the foreign delegations that the oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (too considered under the influence of Greece) was not necessary any more and that it could be transferred in Greece, because the orthodoxe ones of Turkish nationality had their national patriarchate now.
But following acceptance by the Turkish government to preserve the oecumenical Patriarchate (Greek) with Istanbul, the efforts to constitute a Turkish Church “national” ceased, and population exchanges it which put an end to the orthodoxe presence in the area of Cappadoce carried a fatal blow to this new Church.
The chief of the Church, Pavli Eftim, settled with Istanbul thanks to a special permit of the Turkish government which saved it exchange of population. He provides a list of 65 people who, in their turn, settled with Istanbul. Several buildings were granted to them in the district of Péra (Beyoglu) after their abandonment by Greek owners fleeing in Greece following the Turkish victory of September 1922.
Under the Republic
Pavli Eftim tried to occupy the seat of the oecumenical Patriarchate in the district of Phanar, but it was evacuated by the police force at the 17th day of the occupation. He stated to want to protest against the Patriarch Grégorios VII, judged pro-Athenian, but he makes some intended to seize the oecumenical title of Patriarch. In order to have a place of worship to continue its activities, it occupied the Greek-orthodoxe church Panaghia Kaphatiani in the Galata district, on European bank of Istanbul. Then, the oecumenical Patriarchate excommunicated it on February 19th 1924. The second council of the Turkish orthodoxe Church took place in June 1924 in this occupied church.
Initially accommodated favorably by certain orthodoxe Christians of Turkey, who feared the fatal consequences of the implication of the Phanariotes in the gréco-Turkish war and thus hoped to escape the exchanges from population, the Patriarchate of Baba Eftim was quickly regarded more only as one institution marionette, without any real base, left naphthaline to each turco-Greek crisis for the needs for propaganda. Mustafa Kemal itself was not made an illusion on this subject, qualifying Baba Eftim " general without soldats". A second church in the same district, Sotiros Christos , was occupied on March 31st 1926. This church was returned to the oecumenical Patriarchate by the intervention of the Turkish government in 1948.
A daily newspaper entitled Metarithmisis was published between 1926 and 1932, in Turkish but in Greek characters, to defend the cause of the Turkish orthodoxe Church and to invite the orthodoxe Greeks of Istanbul (about 100.000 individuals in 1927) to give up the oecumenical Patriarchate and to join this Church, without much success.
For lack of religious men, Pavli Eftim started to order its close relations, like its nephews Ermis and Doran, and its Turgut son in 1937. This last was named bishop on October 15th 1961. Following the withdrawal of his father due to health, he became the second patriarch of the Turkish orthodoxe Church on February 28th 1964 under the name of Eftim II . His/her brother, Selçuk, are ordered deacon in 1956.
The partisans of the Turkish orthodoxe Church occupied the churches Aghios Nicolaos and Aghios Ioannis Prodromos , always in the district Galata, in August 1965.
The founder of the Church, Pavli Eftim died on March 14th 1968, but the oecumenical Patriarchate opposed its burial in an orthodoxe cemetery, then that it had been excommunicated before. It is only after the personal intervention of the President of the Republic, Cevdet Sunay, that the authorization was granted and that it was buried with the Greek cemetery of Sisli. The same problem re-appears after the death of Eftim II on May 9th 1991. His/her brother Selçuk Erenerol became then patriarch under the name of Eftim III .
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, gouvenement Turkish proposed with Stéphan Topal, chief of Gök-Oguz or Gagaouze S (Turkish-speaking orthodoxe of Bessarabia), to be attached to Eftim III, which would have thus passed from forty faithful to nearly 120.000. Stéphan Topal visited him in 1994 to the expenses of the Turkish government. But Eftim III asked for sending of 100 gagaouzes families and 4 priests Istanbul in order to constitute a true community, which Stéphan Topal could not accept, because it had the other engagements inherited its Soviet past: to maintain the pressure Russian on the government lately independent of the Republic of Moldavie, via the claim of a Gagaouze Autonomous region in Moldavie, so that the new state does not leave the sphere of influence of Moscow. This is why, even if their fastening with the Turkish orthodoxe Patriarchate is regularly evoked by the Turkish nationalist press, the all Gagaouzes are remained faithful to the Patriarcat of Moscow.
The actual position
Eftim III ordered to deacon his son Pasa and its nephew Erkin in August 2000 and died in December 2002. It was not replaced. Moreover, he had declared his withdrawal a few weeks before his death to protest against the attitude, too laxist with his taste, of the Turkish government with respect to the oecumenical Patriarchate, is a prelude to in his eyes of an entry of the Turkey in the European Union to which he was opposed.
His/her daughter, Sevgi Erenerol, took up already the duty of spokesperson and remain currently the single known figure of a patriarchate today without patriarch. It intervenes from time to time in meetings ultranationalists to denounce the activities of the foreign evangelic missionaries in Turkey. She also protests against the efforts of Turkey to join the European Union, judging that the reforms undertaken for this purpose will end up harming the country.
This " patriarcat" forever have from another priest only Baba Eftim because its successors had never received the least theological formation. The community of this Church is limited to the widened family of Erenerol which currently counts nearly 40 members (2007). The family manages with her profit the ecclesiastical goods which ensure him of the considerable incomes while escaping any fiscal control, since pertaining to a religious foundation.
Currently two their churches remain completely closed, while the third (Aghios Ioannis Prodromos) is rented at the Assyrian community since the beginning of the years 1990.
At the end of the years 1960, an American branch was created by a doctor converted African-American, Civet Kristof (Christopher Mr. Cragg), which did not want to depend on the Greek archbishop of the United States and consequently of the oecumenical Patriarchate. It would have counted to 20 churches and 14.800 members in 1971, but in the years 1980 its archbishop went to settle in Chicago and " renamed it; American Orthodox Church, Diocese off Chicago and North America". There was no more that only one church depending on this branch in 1991. This Church maintained forever concrete relations with the Turkish orthodoxe Church.
Churches
The Patriarchate has three churches, Panaghia Kaphatiani (Notre-Dame of Caffa), Aghios Nicolaos (Saint Nicolas's Day) and Aghios Ioannis Prodromos (Holy Jean-Baptiste), all three located in the same small perimeter in the district of Karakoy, on European bank of Istanbul. Only that of Aghios Ioannis Prodromos (Holy Jean-Baptiste) still accommodates religious offices, since it was rented at the Assyrian community under the direction of İbrahim Asil. It was damaged slightly by a bomb the April 29th 2000. The oecumenical Patriarchate forever recognized these occupations and always claimed the restitution of these churches.
Patriarchs
- Dad Eftim I (1923-1964)
- Eftim II (1964-1991)
- Eftim III (1991-2002); vacant post since.
See too
Related articles
External bonds
- Information on the Turkish orthodoxe Church
- Photographs
- Jan Pacal, The secret heroes off Turkish history -- Christian Turkish Nationalists, Turkish Daily News, Saturday, August 10,1996
- Associated Press, Leader off Turkish Nationalist Church Dies, Turkish Times December 15-31, 2002
- Richard Clogg, The empty spaces where Greeks ounce were, The Times, November 30,2005
| Random links: | Lourdoueix-Saint-Pierre | Pomegranate (military) | Paul Cuvelier | Spa (hydrotherapy) | One beautiful day of weddings |