Constantinople Patriarchate eyes charter

The Fener Greek Patriarchate demands legal guarantees in the new constitution for the protection of Halki Seminary, after a date was given for its expected reopening by the end of the year, a spokesman for the Patriarchate has said, Hurriyet reports. 

A draft of the new constitution draft will be completed by December and will pass through Parliament in the spring, Dositheos Anagnostopoulos, a Patriarchate spokesman, said. “If it is decided that the Halki seminary will be reopened, we will demand an article in the new constitution to prevent the threat of [the seminary’s] being closed again, so that similar problems won’t occur again,” Anagnostopoulos said. “We want a specified date for the reopening of the seminary by the end of the year. If there is no progress, we will initiate a legal process at the end of the year, as our Patriarch had said before. If we cannot solve the problem with the national laws in Turkey, we will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR], although we don’t want to do that. We [may not] have another choice, though#mce_temp_url#.”