Turkish culture minister visits Ecumenical Patriarch

Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy met with Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos in Istanbul on Saturday and discussed issues affecting the Patriarchate, according to a press release from the Patriarchate.

Talks focused, among others, on the issue of the reopening of the Theological School of Halki, the seminary off the coast of Istanbul which Turkey shut down in 1971, the rights of the minority, the restoration of the Orphanage Building of Prince Island, the occupied properties of the diaspora and the restoration of a series of churches.