Halki

On the top of a hill in a small island, close to Constantinople shores, there is a school that for many years was educating young men to faith matters and ecclesiastic order of the Orthodoxy. The present Ecumenic Patriarch, as well as many of the past, archbishops and a number of university professors are graduates from this school of Halki.

The school is being run by the monastic brotherhood of the Holy Trinity whose members stem from the school’s students. Further to the theological school the brotherhood operated a high school were the hellenic minority boys of the island could attend classes.  In 1971 the Turkish state ruled that all private institutions of higher education had either to became part of state universities or to closed down. The Halki school had then to closed down. Since then and despite the many requests from all over the world, the Turkish government repeatedly declines a permit to reopen the school.