Tag Archives: Church and State
Culture War Flashback
On Fridays in 2024 we are revisiting posts from the same date in the early years of this blog. I had forgotten this one from September 13, 2015. The case was huge on Twitter and Facebook. Depending on your slant, either a Christian was jailed for her faith or a scoff-law was put in her […]
The Orphanage
It is Flashback Friday once more. Today we go back to March 22, 2015 and some reflections on a visit to Istanbul. I wrote about visiting one of the Princes Islands in Istanbul, and my interest in the abandoned building at the top of the hill. I recently discovered there is more to the story of that […]
Falling Down?
If not for the fog, I would never have seen the orphanage. The building reconciled me to missing a day in Cappadocia. With our flight canceled due to weather conditions we spent the day instead on the Princes’ Islands. There was a big wodden structure at the top of Buyukada Island that we just had […]
Religious Freedom – But Only For Some
In Algeria on Sunday the government, deciding the pandemic risks are somewhat lessened, issued an order allowing mosques to re-open. Conspicuously absent was any mention of other religions. Churches must remain closed. But restaurants can re-open. Algeria has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guaranteeing the right to freedom of religion, including […]
Buyukada Orphanage
I was reading a news report about the possible re-opening of Halki Seminary in Istanbul, which was shuttered by the Turkish government almost 40 years ago, leaving Turkey’s Orthodox church without a seminary to train its priests, when I remembered this post I did four years ago about another Orthodox institution on a neighboring island. […]
The Guards’ Chapel – I
I am always uneasy at the relationship between church and state, especially when they become intertwined. Jesus said we should give the state the respect it deserved. Paul, a little later, urged Christians to pray for those in authority, which seems like a really good idea these days. No matter which country you are in, […]
Buyukada Orphanage
I wrote about visiting one of the Princes Islands in Istanbul, and my interest in the abandoned building at the top of the hill. I recently discovered there is more to the story of that abandoned orphanage than what I learned on the trip. It has fairly recently been part of an important court case. […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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