Turkish Daily News September 30, 2006
The Greek Orthodox patriarch says Pope Benedict XVI did not intend to offend Muslims with his remarks.
ISTANBUL – Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartolomeos I called on Christians to respect other religions and said on Thursday he was convinced the pope did not intend to offend Muslims with comments about the Prophet Mohammed.
The patriarch was hosting a group of Vatican-based journalists in Istanbul before Pope Benedict XVI’s visit here in late November.
“We don’t need to cultivate this confrontation, this enmity,” Bartolomeos said in touching on the outrage in the Muslim world over Benedict’s comments. “We need to respect the religious beliefs of others.”
Bartolomeos, spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, said he was looking forward “with great anticipation” to Benedict’s visit and that greater unity between Orthodox and Catholic Christians was “for the good of humanity.”
Turkish leaders have repeatedly called on the pope to offer a personal apology for quoting a Byzantine emperor who disparaged Islam’s Prophet and linked his teachings with violence.
“I repeat with conviction that your pope did not intend to offend the Muslim world,” Bartolomeos told the group in Italian from a chamber at the patriarchate in Istanbul. “Naturally, we do not want to offend the Prophet of our brother Muslims.” Bartolomeos said Christians should understand such an offense in the same way they would understand an offense made against Jesus.
On Thursday in Rome, the chief negotiator for Turkey’s EU membership bid said Turks had accepted the pope’s expression of regret. “We thought the words were unfortunate, but, on the other hand, we (have accepted) the pope’s corrective attempts,” Ali Babacan said.
The previous day, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called Benedict’s expressions of regret “maneuvers” and said the president would set him straight on Islam when the pontiff visits Turkey.
Benedict’s visit will be his first as pope to a predominantly Muslim country. Both Benedict and Bartolomeos have said they are committed to greater unity among Christians, which will be a key focus of the trip.
Christianity’s East-West split began as early as the fifth century over the rising influence of the Papacy. The split was sealed in 1054 with an exchange of anathemas — spiritual repudiations — between the Vatican and the patriarch of Constantinople, now Istanbul.
Catholic and Orthodox dignitaries met in Belgrade earlier this week to discuss the process of bringing East and West closer together but produced no breakthrough.
Orthodox clergymen accompanying Bartolomeos said the key issue dividing the two churches remained the dispute over the power, or primacy, of the pope.
Metropolitan John of Bergama said Orthodox Christians had to overcome their suspicions “that the Roman Catholic church is interested in subjecting the Orthodox to the authority of the bishop of Rome,” or the pope. “We have to overcome this psychological difficulty,” he said. “There must be a kind of reformation … reformation of the primacy. Otherwise we cannot meet.”
