Easter andTurkey

Christ is risen, Alleluia! He has truly risen, Alleluia!

All Orthodox Christians throughout the world, as well as Catholics who follow "Eastern Rite" liturgies and traditions but are in union with the Church of Rome, greet one another with those words during the Easter season. The first sentence is the greeting by one person; the second sentence is the response by the other.

Sure beats "Hi, how are ya?", doesn't it?

If you want to look further into this, Wikipedia lists the variants of this greeting in dozens of languages worldwide at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_greeting. Nifty, isn't it. Imagine: so many languages, cultures, and nationalities, and one faith!

So what does this have to do with Turkey, a secular republic that is more than 99% Muslim? Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet, the greatest of the prophets before Muhammad. They even recognize his virgin birth from Mary. (In fact, Mary is mentioned more times in the Koran than she is the New Testament.) But they do not believe in his divinity, in his Resurrection, nor that he is the Son of God.

Accurate statistics are difficult to come by, but best estimates of the non-Muslim population are about 35,000 Catholics, 80,000 Orthodox (of which there are many varieties), 5,000 Protestants, and 26,000 Jews. (The majority of Jews in Turkey are Sephardic, descendants of those expelled from Spain in 1492.)

Behind these numbers lies an extensive, multifaceted history that, like any history of peoples and cultures, has glorious and tragic elements intermingled. Unfortunately, the history that most of us have learned in our American education, including Catholic church history, is heavily biased toward Euro-centrism, ignoring or downplaying both the intrinsic value of other cultures and the significance of their contribution to what we now are pleased to call "Western Civilization."

Frankly, I have come very late in life to realize and understand this. I became interested in this significant and neglected part of our heritage, including the 2,000-year contribution of Eastern Christianity as well as the 1,300-year contribution of Islam and Muslim culture, only as a result of my first visit to Turkey in 2000, exactly 10 years ago. I too was thoroughly indoctrinated in Euro-centrism for the first 57 years of my life. My own cultural awakening has broadened and deepened my understanding of our heritage as Catholic Christians and its implication for our life here and now in today's world. This isn't limited to history or cultural anthropology alone. My life-long interest in theology, scripture, and liturgy has been re-oriented as well. (Don't forget that the etymology of the word "orientation" means "facing east.) Out of this has been born my passion to share, as widely as I can, understanding of this heritage. And that's why I see leading this Early Christian world Pilgrimage to Turkey every year as a central part of my ministry even as pastor of a parish.

Why Turkey? Christianity, including Catholic Christianity, grew up in the land we now call Turkey. Even before Rome could claim its role as the sole center of "Catholic" Christianity, the Christian church was a collaborative diversity of churches. There are undoubtedly more sites in Turkey, made holy by significant holy people and events, than anywhere else in the world, including Rome and Israel/Palestine. With good reason I often call Turkey "the other Holy Land." Sadly, East and West grew increasingly alienated from one another, until the (thus far) irrevocable split occurred in 1054 with an angry and tragic mutual excommunication. This mutual excommunication was formally nullified in 1965 by Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I. There has been serious contact and dialogue since then, but any real, formal unity remains elusive.

More often than not, for a variety of historical reasons, the Orthodox celebrate Easter several weeks after we do in the West. This year, however, it's the same. On Thursday and Friday this week (April 8-9), our Early Christian World Pilgrims will be visiting several historic Orthodox churches in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), and will see those churches still decked out in their Easter finery. We will be praying for you at all the holy places in this land, dear to the heritage of both Catholic and Orthodox Christians. And we ask that you pray for us during the coming weeks of our Pilgrimage. You can follow us on the Pilgrimage at http://ecwpilgrimage.org.

Christ is risen, Alleluia! He has truly risen, Alleluia!