Fascinating little doco on the Turkish based patriarch of the Orthodox Church.
Despite being headquartered in Constantinople/Istanbul for 1700 years, the Patriarchy is coming under pressure from an increasingly Islamized Turkish state and society.
The Enemies Within
My goodness. It's only going to get worse.
The second clip gave me a shudder, specifically about the school and the future of the patriarchs.
I cannot help but see interwoven threads here, looking to the future.
Maranatha!
I think of Turkey I think the Armenian Genocide. The socialists used the Kurds. Socialists instigate, give orders, death ensues.
When we have problems with muslims here or in the EU, they step up their terror, on our Christian brethern. I thought of them immediately when the Cordoba Mosque got heated. God bless them.
While the details of where the church began and who started it are important, the bottom line here is that this is a very good example of how the Muslim faith hates Christianity and will stop at nothing to crush people who believe in Jesus Christ. The thing that must be remembered is that our devotion to The Trinity will never be shaken. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Pretty unfortunate. Interesting how this is close in nature to the mosque fiasco in NY, except in the case of the mosque the opponents are not saying they can't build a mosque. They must look for a different location. In Turkey they are closing the churches.
Slight misunderstanding here: the Ancient Orthodox Church has no "pope", but is ordered by local bishops and patriarchs in a Synod. See more under youtube.com (under Judith Irene Matta) The Ecumenical Patriarch here is our honored Patriarch who suffers under Muslim threats.
Jerusalem is the place where "God walked upon the earth" and, contrary to this commentator, Orthodox Christianity was founded by the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem (Acts 2) at Pentecost. Christ's Church then spread through the apostles to Cappadocia and all the nations of the Roman Empire. Christ's Church has been called "orthodox" since 325 a.d to distinguish themselves from non-believers who also used the appelation "christian".