IeroXoro

How do most secular Turks feel about the reopening of Halki Seminary and the existing oppression of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew? The Greek community there has been taken down to just 2,000 and I've been told (during my short 4 day visit to "The City") even secular Turks wouldn't want them back.

Is it just the current government and AKP party that has kept oppressing the Patriarch and refusing to open Halki?

The attempts to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque, are they serious? Are they government sponsored, or supported by the people?

The current issue, as far as I know, is that the Patriarch has to be a Turkish citizen, and must be born in Turkey, and also attend Halki Seminary. However, there really aren't many more generations of Orthodox left in Turkey, and the government has kept Halki closed.

Personally, I feel the best thing would be for the Turkish government to let Halki reopen as a seminary, and let the Christians build their Churches freely.

I don't know much about the Turkish government or the people, but would it be too much of a stretch to have complete religious freedom?

I may be dreaming, but it's be nice just to see parts of the old city refurbished and Greeks, Bulgarians and others move in there.

It's probably an impossible dream, but It'd be a nice hope, that if Greece is willing to return the mosques to Muslims, maybe in Turkey, the churches can be returned to Christians.

Are the groups that threatened to assassinate the Patriarch from small, Islamist groups? I remember seeing armed guards, tall walls and barbed wire around the church the Patriarch was at to protect him, is that hostility and beed for protection mainly due to his being a Christian symbol, or a political symbol (of Byzantium/Greee)?