The Turkish government is considering reopening the historic Halki Theological School as a university institution, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, in a move that could address one of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s longstanding demands.
The plan is part of an effort to improve relations between Ankara and Washington, according to Bloomberg. The United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged Turkey to reopen the school and take steps to expand religious freedom.
Under the reported plan, the school would be brought into Turkey’s system of higher education. Its academic programs would be overseen by the Turkish Ministry of Education, while students would be admitted through the country’s national university entrance exam.
The new structure would include a theology faculty, allowing Orthodox clergy to be trained in Turkey for the first time in more than five decades.
Bloomberg said a draft agreement was completed after a meeting in Ankara between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Turkish media have also reported positive signals about the possible reopening.
Bartholomew, in an interview with the Hürriyet daily last week, said restoration, reinforcement and renovation work at the seminary was expected to be completed in the coming months.
He said permission from Turkish authorities for the school to resume operations would be “a source of great happiness” for the patriarchate, the church and the Greek Orthodox community.
Bartholomew said Erdoğan had instructed Education Minister Yusuf Tekin in 2024 to examine the possibility of reopening the school. Tekin visited the seminary in May of that year, after which a constructive dialogue began among the Education Ministry, Turkey’s Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and the patriarchate, he said.
“I pray that this dialogue will reach a favorable outcome and that a decision allowing the school to reopen will be taken,” Bartholomew said.
The patriarch said in Athens in May that extensive renovations to the seminary’s building complex would be completed in the coming months and that, “God willing,” its inauguration would be celebrated in September. The patriarchate later clarified that he was referring to the renovated building, not the reopening of the seminary, which would still require a formal license from Turkish authorities.
The Halki Theological School, located on Heybeliada, one of İstanbul’s Princes’ Islands, opened in 1844 and served as the main theological school for the Eastern Orthodox Church until its higher education department was closed in 1971 after legal changes banned private institutions of higher learning.
The school trained many Orthodox leaders, including Bartholomew, and has remained closed despite decades of calls for Ankara to allow it to reopen.
Its reopening has remained one of the most prominent issues raised by the Greek Orthodox Church and international actors in discussions about religious freedom in Turkey.
The US State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom said Christians in Turkey experience various challenges and rights violations, noting that Christian denominations continue to face limitations on their religious rights despite the protections formally recognized under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
If carried out, the plan would mark a significant step for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Orthodox theological education in Turkey, ending more than half a century of uncertainty over the school’s future.