And the Next Day

The next Day, Holy Saturday, I was delighted to be invited to fill baskets for the poor with the Greek young adults of Istanbul. Each family got a back stocked with meat, red Easter eggs, tsourehia (Easter bread), cheese and wine. Additionally, Red Crescent, the Turkish equivalent of Red Cross had donated tons of dry goods (bulgar, Turkish ravioli etc) that were also donated. His All-Holiness the Patriarch Bartholomew himself came in while we were filling bags and handed me a bucket of Easter candy for the group. It was very kind but I couldn't be but a little amused by the contrast of this man in all his royal garb and the plastic bucket of Peeps and chocolate eggs.

Afterwards, I got to talk to some of the youth. They are a very small group, maybe 20 people there that day. Most of them had gone to school at the private parochial schools, where they studied Greek as well as Turkish (and then had to take the university entrance exam in English). There are an estimated 2000-4000 ethnic Greeks who remain in Turkey today. Istanbul alone has a population of something like 12 million. 4000 out of 12 million is something like .03%, and that doesn't include the rest of Turkey. I was talking to one girl, who is my age, and I asked her whether she thought many Greeks would migrate to Istanbul if Turkey was admitted into the European Union. She said it was possible, since the economic outlook is currently so much better than that of Turkey. She added that it seemed that would be the only way they would remain a presence in Istanbul; otherwise they would die out.

It was a sobering realization. When at the Patriarchate on any given Sunday, surrounded by hundreds of tourists and the royal entourage in a beautiful, well-maintained church, it doesn't occur to one that this is but a tiny light separated from the rest of the Orthodox world, but still expected to lead it.