Pray that this News is Real and the Results Beneficial

(ANKARA) - Turkey is planning to re-open a Greek Orthodox seminary that was shut down nearly four decades ago, Turkey's culture minister was quoted as saying Sunday.

The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, and the United States have long pressed Ankara to re-open the theology school on the island of Halki, off Istanbul, to prove respect for the rights of its tiny Christian minority.

Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said the government was inclined to re-open the school, even though a final decision was not yet made, the mass-selling Milliyet daily reported.

"Both my personal conviction and the general inclination I see is that the school will be opened," Gunay was quoted as saying.

"The school does not currently fit into our university system, but another formula will be worked out... There is no political problem," he said.

The minister explained the authorities were grappling with "the technical problem" on whether the seminary should have the status of a university or a vocational high school.

The century-old seminary was closed down in 1971, depriving the Eastern Orthodox Church, seated in Istanbul since Byzantine times, of its only facility to train clergy in Turkey.

The closure was the result of legislation bringing institutions of higher education under state control, an arrangement into which the seminary did not fit.

Gunay conceded that Turkish-Greek tensions over the island of Cyprus at the time were also a prominent factor behind the move.

"What happened in the past is left behind... We need to say new things now," he said.

Keen to boost its struggling EU membership bid, Ankara has in recent years moved to improve the rights of its tiny non-Muslim minorities, mainly Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

Ecumenical Patriarch addresses Roman Synod

Thanks to Sandro Magister for the text of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I of Constantinople to the Roman Synod on the Holy Scriptures. His All Holiness' intervention came on Saturday, 18 October 2008 in the context of a Vespers Service. The main celebrant was His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope of Rome.

Josephus Flavius over at Byzantine, Texas in an article recounting an interview with Archimandrite Ignatios Sotiriadis, includes the quote:

"It was a historical event, in which a Pope celebrates vespers before the representatives of the entire Catholic episcopate and on this occasion, doesn't exercise his ministry as teacher, but concedes it to the second bishop of the Church when it was not yet divided."

Sandro provides the whole address. Read it all.

To whet your whistle, herein are a few snippets...

[I]n having today the privilege to address Your Synod our hopes are raised that the day will come when our two Churches will fully converge on the role of primacy and synodality in the Church’s life, to which our common Theological Commission is devoting its study at the present time.
...
At each celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the presiding celebrant at the Eucharist entreats “that we may be made worthy to hear the Holy Gospel.” For “hearing, beholding and handling the Word of life” (1 Jn 1.1) are not first and foremost our entitlement or birthright as human beings; they are our privilege and gift as children of the living God.
...
The challenge before us is the discernment of God’s Word in the face of evil, the transfiguration of every last detail and speck of this world in the light of Resurrection. The victory is already present in the depths of the Church, whenever we experience the grace of reconciliation and communion.

As part of Pope Benedict's response to the Ecumenical Patriarch's intervention, he is quoted as saying:

Your Fathers, that you have quoted so many times, are also our Fathers, and ours are also yours: if we have common Fathers, how could we not be brothers?

Indeed.