The renovation of a long-closed Greek Orthodox school on an Istanbul island will be finished in September, but it does not yet have a licence to reopen, the patriarchate said Sunday.
Located on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands, the Halki seminary opened in the mid-19th century and was the main theological school for the Eastern Orthodox Church until it was closed under a Turkish law in 1971.
Despite decades of pressure on Ankara to reopen it, led by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians, the school has remained shut.
The patriarch told donors in Athens on Thursday that he was "optimistic" about the possibility of it reopening, but a spokesman for the Istanbul-based patriarchate clarified that there were no plans to reopen the seminary, only to inaugurate the newly renovated building.
The issue is being followed by Washington and the European Union, which has criticised Turkey for failing to ensure the religious freedoms of non-Muslim minorities.
The seminary carries a symbolic significance for the world's Orthodox community, which had its capital in Constantinople until 1453 when the Ottomans conquered the city and renamed it Istanbul.
