Turkish nationalists are calling at the govt of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to revoke the passport of Archbishop Elpidophoros of The usa, the best score Greek Orthodox cleric in the United States.
As a Turkish citizen, the archbishop is among the few clerics eligible to develop into the following Patriarch of Constantinople. The holder of this place is ceaselessly referred to as the “spiritual leader” of Jap Orthodox Christians, despite the fact that this standing is contested.
Critics of Elpidophoros consider he must be stripped of his Turkish citizenship for time and again relating to the Patriarch of Constantinople as “ecumenical”. This, this means that the placement represents plenty of other Christian Church buildings, is a nod to the possible world authority of the place of work. Turkey does now not recognise the patriarch’s ecumenical standing.
Additionally they criticise Elpidophoros for the use of the identify Constantinople as a substitute of Istanbul (maximum just lately all through a Greek Independence Day birthday party on the White Area). This was once the identify of town when it was once the capital of the Ottoman empire.
The placement would possibly appear someplace between petty and parochial – the troubles of a small and fairly unimportant nook of the sector, or a short-term flare-up within the Greek-Turkish war. However this might now not be farther from the reality.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople is a essential participant in two unstable areas: the Heart East and japanese Europe. Each Turkey and Russia, regional powers in those volatile spaces, have made faith a central part in their propaganda.
They’ve every sought to provide themselves because the father or mother in their respective devout custom, regardless of having spent a lot of the twentieth century in more than a few sorts of state-sponsored hostility to faith. For Russia and Turkey, the Patriarchate of Constantinople stands as a drawback to their most well-liked narratives.
Non secular politics
Russia beneath Vladimir Putin and Turkey beneath Erdoğan have develop into deeply invested in selling themselves because the guardians of conventional Christianity and Islam, respectively. Through leveraging this place, they have got garnered sympathy and reinforce amongst individuals who have been as soon as detached and even antagonistic to them.
Influential conservative commentators in the United States akin to Tucker Carlson and Rod Dreher have praised Putin’s “anti-woke” rhetoric. And a few ultraconservative American males are reportedly changing to Russian Orthodoxy.
Turkey, for its phase, started setting up mosques and coaching imams out of the country, together with in western Europe, as early because the Nineteen Seventies. However prior to now 23 years, beneath the rule of thumb of the Justice and Construction celebration (AKP), it has considerably expanded those efforts.
The enemies Russia and Turkey declare to fight are each inner and exterior. Putin, Erdoğan and their aligned clerics, had been vocal of their denunciation of western “decadence”. That is typically represented via the liberal sexual and gender politics of western international locations.
But they have got been simply as adamant in opposing the ones inside of their very own traditions. In Russia’s case, this has intended perceived liberalisers in large part positioned within the Hellenic global – now not simply the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but additionally the Patriarchate of Alexandria, in addition to the Church buildings of Greece and Cyprus.
For Turkey, this inner enemy has basically taken the type of Saudi-backed Wahhabism, a strict, ultraconservative type of Sunni Islam.
Putin attends Christmas provider in Moscow, Russia, in January 2025.
Vyacheslav Prokofiev / Kremlin Pool / EPA
The world devout affect of Russia and Turkey is dependent upon a selected nationwide narrative. Russia should be now not just a traditionally Orthodox country, however the main Orthodox country – the rightful heir of the japanese Roman global.
Likewise, Turkey should provide itself as an explicitly and completely Muslim country, the inheritor to an Ottoman empire reimagined as way more homogeneous than it ever in point of fact was once.
This calls for each international locations reject a lot in their Twentieth-century historical past. Neither Soviet communism nor the stern secularity of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, suits the present plot. It additionally calls for the rewriting of medieval and early trendy histories.
And for each, the Patriarch of Constantinople poses an important drawback. That is very true if he’s observed as the rest greater than an area ethnic chief, therefore the objection to the usage of “ecumenical” in his identify.
If the Patriarch of Constantinople is a world devout chief, then Moscow isn’t the undisputed head of the Orthodox global, neither is Turkey a homogeneously Muslim country with a homogeneously Muslim previous.
Why the following patriarch issues
Patriarch Bartholomew, the present Patriarch of Constantinople, ascended to the throne in 1991. He has been a reasonable and modernising drive within the Orthodox global and past. Bartholomew has championed problems akin to environmentalism, inter-religious discussion and human rights, whilst additionally opposing Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Now Bartholomew is 85 years outdated, the dialog has grew to become to the query of his successor. The choices are restricted, as the following patriarch should be a Turkish citizen.
If the patriarchate is to proceed serving as one of those opposition to Russian and Turkish expansionism, the following chief should even be a reasonable. Must a extra reactionary determine take the place of work, there’s a actual risk this counterbalance shall be misplaced.
For many who hope to withstand Russian and Turkish aggression and to advertise values akin to human rights within the Orthodox global and Heart East, there’s merely no more sensible choice than Archbishop Elpidophoros.
He has challenged Russian expansionism in Ukraine, defended democracy and pluralism and has taken a pastoral way to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ other folks and girls within the Church.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople attending a summit on peace in Ukraine in Switzerland, June 2024.
Alessandro Della Valle / Pool / EPA
Regardless that the patriarch is a fairly difficult to understand place in world phrases, it’s exactly as a result of the present world state of affairs that there is also not more vital devout chief than one that can exert affect throughout japanese Europe and the Heart East.
The truth that allies of Putin and Erdoğan have joined in attacking Elpidophoros suggests now not most effective that they are not looking for him to develop into the following Patriarch of Constantinople. It additionally means that western democracies must take a deep hobby in who does.
The patriarchate is a rejection of the ancient lies upon which each Russian and Turkish comfortable energy relaxation. Thus, the person who occupies the place of work should be as much as the duty.
