Greek-American questions Turkey's EU admission

Nicholas Gage, renowned author and journalist, said that Turkey must take great strides, not "baby steps", to extend religious freedom and end harassment of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008 By Martin Barillas
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Author and former New York Times correspondent Nicholas Gage wrote in the International Herald Tribune on September 8, 2008 that for Turkey to join the European Community “it must show that it is ready to take great strides in adopting a European outlook, not the baby steps it has taken until now.” Gage said in his opinion piece “Orthodox Christianity under threat” on IHT’s opinion page that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist party have “shown no inclination to extend even a modicum of religious freedom to the most revered Christian institution in Turkey - the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of 300 million Orthodox Christians throughout the world. As a result, Turkey's persecution of the Patriarchate looms as a major obstacle to its European aspirations, and rightly so.”

Gage denounced the harassment suffered by the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I, at the hands of Turkish bureaucrats who “summon him to their offices to question and berate him about irrelevant issues, blocking his efforts to make repairs in the few buildings still under his control, and issuing veiled threats about what he says and does when he travels abroad.” Muslim chauvinists, according to Gage, demonstrate almost daily outside the walls of the Patriarchate and call for its ouster from Turkey despite its presence in the city once known as Constantinople since before the time of Mohammed.

Gage noted the Turks' blocking of Bartholomew ‘s efforts to make repairs in the few buildings still under his control, and issuing veiled threats about what he says and does when he travels abroad. The patriarch is also frequently burned in effigy by Islamist demonstrators. Historically, the Patriarchate held properties that rivaled that of the Vatican while successive Ottoman and modern Turkish governments have whittled away at them. Also, according to Gage, “Turkish governments have followed policies that deliberately belittle the patriarch, refusing to recognize his ecumenical status as the spiritual leader of a major religious faith but viewing him only as the head of the small Greek Orthodox community of Istanbul.”

Congressman Tom Lantos (D), long noted for his work on foreign affairs and human rights in the US House of Representatives, described the Patriarchate as “one of the world’s oldest and greatest treasures” and joined 42 of the 50 members of the Foreign Affairs Committee in a 2008 letter urging Turkey to recognize the ecumenical standing of the Patriarchate, return expropriated property, reopen its schools, and cease its interference in the process of selecting the patriarch as well as its continued insistence that he be a Turkish citizen. Noting that there are but 2,500 Orthodox Christians left in once was once the seat of Eastern Christianity, Lantos declared “It is the church, not the Turkish state, that should determine who becomes ecumenical patriarch.”

Gage noted that Turkey’s population now stands at 71 millions and its combined troop strength of 1.1 million men under arms surpasses any of Europe’s nations. He asked “If Turkey becomes a full member of the European Union, will it accommodate to Europe's liberal traditions or will it use its demographic and military prowess to bend Europe to its will? The EU has already ruled that Turkey must allow the ships of Cyprus, an EU member, to use Turkish ports, but Turkey has completely ignored the ruling despite its eagerness to join Europe. So the key question is whether Turkey is willing to adapt to Europe or wants only to join the EU on its own terms. It is crucial for Europe to know Turkey's real intentions before opening its doors to the country.”

Author Nicolas Gage has written several books about the Mafia in the United States, as well as an account of his mother in the acclaimed book “Eleni” which chronicled her death at the hands of Greek communists in the 1950s. He has also written a biography of Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas.

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