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...excellent point.

Dear Iconophile,

Please read the original article of this thread...

The whole discussion here is about *formal promises* made regarding our religious rights that are being ignored TWO weeks before the EU is prepared to discuss their membership. If they can't keep a promise about religious rights NOW, what makes you think that this leopard will change its spots AFTER?

Alice, who is very discouraged.

I really don't know what the answer is.

Please read the original article of this thread...

The whole discussion here is about *formal promises* made regarding Orthodox religious rights that are being ignored TWO weeks before the EU is prepared to discuss their membership. If they can't keep a promise about religious rights NOW, what makes you think that this leopard will change its spots AFTER?

Alice, who is very discouraged by this news article.

I really don't know what the answer is.

The Turkish government is one of the worst human rights abusers and religious repressors. Since the tryumph of Kemal Ataturk, the US-backed Masonic dictatorship has murdered thousands of Christians and repressed Muslims.

Turkish gaols are full of disidents and political prisioners who are brutaly tortured (leftists, Kurdish Nationalists, Catholic Kurds, Armenians and religious Muslims).

The Ecumenical Patriarchate has been used by the Masonic government to promote its suposed image of "tolerance" throughout the world while the Church is facing destruction there (it's not a secret that among the Bishops presiding the Synod there are some who do not have more than 100 parishioenrs in the whole diocese!).

Dan, I don't know quite what you are getting at, considering the West promised help but never delivered, the Emperor St. Constantine Paleologus the Martyr dying on the walls of Constantinople in the midst of Turkish lances in expectation of help which did not come.

This is perhaps even more heinous considering that the Emperor did try to support Florence in accord with Rome. It certainly was NOT an issue of not wanting to be rescued. And one can hardly place all of the blame on the Greeks for the lack of success of Florence. But perhaps the outcome was a lesser injury, as the armies of the West would possibly have been tempted to replay the Fourth Crusade after rescuing a weakened Constantinople.

Certainly, as any secular government, the Empire had its share of despots and intrigue. No argument there.

Compared to our current country where the death of infants ranging in the millions annually is legal and sometimes government-funded, to me the allegation of corruption pales in comparison. I don't think the Byzantines ever sanctioned or had official proclamations condoning infanticide.

Moving to the present, I think the question is rather will Christianity be able to survive there, much less thrive. The vise continues to close on His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch and the thinning ranks of his Church. It is difficult to evangelize with the restrictions and disabilities the EP currently has placed on it. May God through the Most Holy Theotokos, who saved Constantinople many times in the past through her intercession, save their people and bless their inheritance.

Dear Diak,

The Pope did send an army to help Constantinople, but they lost the battle. That helped to add to the consternation of the Greeks. Actually what happened, (and correct me if I'm wrong), was that the council of Basle was being held at the same time as the council of Florence. The Emporor had the choice of attending that one, which would have weakened the Papacy, or the one at Ferarra, ( later Florence).

Because of climate, etc., the Greeks preferred the one called by the Pope at Ferarra. This move on their part strengthened the Papacy, but left the Emporor with a weaker Western force to fight the Turks.

All this goes back to the treaty of Lausanne at the end of the war between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Two million Greeks were expelled, (rather harshly) from Smyrna (Ismir), and the rest of Asia Minor.

According to the treaty, the Patriarch was allowed to remain in Turkey, as long as some 25,000 Turks were allowed to live in Greek Thrace.

The result is that the Greeks in Istambul left during the pogroms of the 1950's and 1960's, yet the Turks living in Thrace have now exceeded one hundred and twenty thousand.

It seems that no matter what agreements are made, the Turks will always win out in the end. There's a method to their madness.

Today, they threaten Greece and Cyprus with squadrons of jets, (thanks to us). They fly over air space that is prohibited to them, and have to be escorted back by Greek jets.

You would think that the situation would be getting better, now that Greece and Cyprus have been backing them as members of the EU. But it's not. It's getting worse. But then again, if they didn't threaten, would any E.U. member state want them?

Zenovia