Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I has been the head of the Eastern Orthodox
Church since 1991. He is a Turkish citizen of Greek ancestry,
as the Ecumenical Patriarch must be according to Turkish law because
the see is Constantinople (Istanbul). While Turkey once had
many ethnic Greeks, most emigrated or were killed in genocide as the
Ottoman Empire fell. As Patriarch, Bartholomew
has championed inter-Christian and inter-religious dialogue and has
defended the environment.
As
Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew is considered the “first among
equals” of the Patriarchs leading the Orthodox church. Although
many Orthodox live in Eastern Europe, more than a million Orthodox
Christians live throughout the Middle East, with considerable
populations in Egypt and the Levant. While Eastern Orthodoxy and
Roman Catholicism agree on many core matters of doctrine, they
disagree on the amount of authority given the head of the Church, as
well as some matters of practice.
For more information on the Patriarch, see http://bit.ly/yAvC5X.
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