The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Theological School of Halki has been shuttered for 55 years – closed by laws of successive, military and civilian, governments of the Republic of Turkey. The Halki case has long been overlooked in international media – after all, the school’s closure doesn’t meet the cynical media adage of “if it bleeds, it leads” – and the lack of media spotlight has been matched by the failure of US foreign policymakers to address what’s at stake in the Halki case. Halki’s half-century closure illustrates how states deliberately use legislation and administrative control to erode a vulnerable community’s living presence and erase its historical memory. For US foreign policymakers struggling to maintain credibility in putatively supporting a rules-based international order that includes robust protections of international religious freedom, Halki is a critical test case of whether rule-of-law commitments retain practical meaning in an increasingly Hobbesian international order.
Threats to the survival of vulnerable faith communities, in this instance, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox community of Turkey, do not emerge only from conditions of armed conflict that target tangible and intangible religio-cultural heritage – the more familiar object of attention from policymakers and media. The closure of Halki underscores that laws can be just as lethal as drones and missiles when it comes to heritage destruction. Indeed, the Halki case stands as evidence of the pernicious effects of weaponizing law to perpetrate violations of international religious freedom and destruction of religio-cultural heritage.
