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HEC
AND HALKI PROJECT |
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AT a press conference in Athens yesterday, Capt Rigos launched HEC's most ambitious campaign to date, an effort to nudge the Turkish government into permitting the reopening of the Halki Theological School, an ages-old icon of Orthodox Christianity based on the Turkish island of Halki. Rigos admits he is not much of a church-goer but the independent HEC campaign is based on human rights rather than religious zeal; indeed, others who have supported the reopening of Halki include Bill Clinton, Congress and Helsinki Watch. Halki's religious and educational import can be traced back to the ninth century, but the school was founded in the 19th century and, as a training centre for Greek and international Orthodox scholars and clergy, has since become a point of acrimony among many between Greeks and Turks. The Turks shut down the school 30 years ago under a law forbidding private universities and have since refused to relent, a policy that needs to be seen in the light of the historic location in Istanbul of the beleaguered Orthodox Patriarchate, an institution which has so far been tolerated. Nowadays, the school building is only being used for occasional conferences. HEC's slick website for the new campaign allows supporters to sign an on-line petition in any of 19 languages and beam the message to the Great and Good of the world - including George Bush, Pope John Paul, the UN, the EU, churches and media of all faiths, and 5,000 parliamentarians throughout Europe. Rigos
expects "three signatures every minute" and is confident a
minimum target of 50,000 will be swiftly reached, after which "the
sky's the limit".
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 action@hec.greece.org
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