Turkey has offered citizenship to foreign archbishops to help the next election of the ecumenical patriarch, spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox faithful, the Orthodox Church Info blog reports today (July 22, 2010).
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has quietly led the gesture to the Orthodox, who face a shortage of candidates to succeed Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, 70, and serve on the Holy Synod, which administers patriarchate affairs.
The Orthodox community in Turkey -- a country that is 98 percent Muslim -- has fallen to some 3,000 from 120,000 a half-century ago, drastically shrinking the pool of potential future patriarchs.
Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, said the government's gesture demonstrates Turkey's commitment to conform with norms on human rights in its bid to join the European Union.
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