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Reopening of Orthodox seminary on agenda at Halki, Turkey
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ytuque



Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!

PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mises wrote:
I don't know. Just seemed to fit.

Anyways, when will the Hagia Sophia be returned to Christendom as a sign of good will from the Turks? Will they take down that tacky Arabic writing?


When I took a tour of the Hagia Sophia in 2007, the Turkish tour guides were explaining the Ottomans plastered over the Christian iconography to protect it because they had deep respect for Christianity as required by the Koran. I told the tour guides that they should do comedy which wasn't well received.
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Adventurer



Joined: 28 Jan 2006

PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ytuque wrote:
mises wrote:
I don't know. Just seemed to fit.

Anyways, when will the Hagia Sophia be returned to Christendom as a sign of good will from the Turks? Will they take down that tacky Arabic writing?


When I took a tour of the Hagia Sophia in 2007, the Turkish tour guides were explaining the Ottomans plastered over the Christian iconography to protect it because they had deep respect for Christianity as required by the Koran. I told the tour guides that they should do comedy which wasn't well received.


Well, Turkey, like Koreans to some extent, have too much of this face-saving attitude. Too many Turks are very nationalistic and take criticism hard. Recently, Erdogan before the Sudanese president all of a sudden decided not to attend an Islamic conference in Turkey that Europe didn't want to attend said that he couldn't have been guilty of genocide because Muslims don't do such things. Of course, progressive Turks of various stripes thought that that was ridiculous. That said, the AKP has fairer to religious minorities than their so-called secular counterparts, unfortunately. The secular parties have horrible leadership. Baykal really needs to step down.

The icons were covered up because iconography is considered sacriligeous and entail graven images. Muslims generally, with many exceptions, in the past, wouldn't paint things with images of people.
You couldn't depit holy figures in a place of worship. That's why they would have covered them up.

It's only in the last 10 years or so that Turkey has been willing to look at its past and its sins whereas Western states have done some of that decades ago.
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NovaKart



Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Location: Iraq

PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is probably my biggest pet peeve about Turkey. One thing that I hear sometimes from Turks is how the Great Wall of China was built because of them. While I suppose there might be some truth to this, I think it's really a big stretch. There were tribes some of which may have been Turkic. It's impossible to connect them to the Ottoman Turks and say if they were their ancestors since the Ottoman Turks wouldn't exist until much later. The Turks can refer to a really large group of people, Tatars, Uzbeks, etc. and the Turkic groups that existed at the time of ancient China would have been different. Kind of like comparing Germanic groups like the Ostrogoths and Saxons with their descendents today.

Anyway it just comes across to me as ignorant boasting, especially when it comes from some guy with a bad blowdried 80s haircut and pointy euro-trash shoes which is really popular here now.
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Summer Wine



Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River

PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 3:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You do realise that the Chinese of today are probably no more relevant to the idea than the turks of yesterday.

We understand the idea that China thinks its wonderful because it has a history of 5000 yrs or so, regardless of who actually lived those 5000 yrs,

Many countries have a 5000 yr history. Australia has a 40,000 yr history so long as the locals get a say in the matter. Israel has a 7000-12000 yr history, Egypt has a 12000 -14000 yr history.

We can't be absolutely sure that the Hans created the wall, or maybe it was the Chin's or maybe other groups. Smile

5000 yrs is nothing compared to other countires,
even PNG has a 5000 yr+ history,
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NovaKart



Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Location: Iraq

PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=why-the-turkish-caesar-crucified-the-ecumenical-patriarch-2009-12-25

According to this article, the CHP is against opening the seminary because it could lead the way towards opening more Islamic schools. Interesting how the AKP (the Islamic party) is in favor of it. Of course they can use the excuse of the lack of mosques in Greece and the minaret ban in Switzerland to justify the lack of minority rights in Turkey.
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