Selcuk Erenerol, leader of a nationalist Turkish Orthodox church that fervently denounced links to Greek Orthodoxy, has died. He was 76.
Erenerol, who died from a heart attack late Thursday, headed the Independent Turkish Orthodox Church, which broke away from the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate after World War I. He became patriarch in 1991.
Erenerol was sometimes nicknamed the "patriarch without a community" as the church had few followers. However, it held several Orthodox churches in Istanbul making it the center of a property dispute with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Istanbul, Constantinople in Greek, was once the capital of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine empire, and was captured by the Muslim Turks in 1453.
Erenerol's church, founded by his father Papa Eftim, sharply denounced any links to its Greek heritage, conducted its liturgies in Turkish, and quickly won favor in the Turkish Republic formed from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.
"They consider themselves the relics of Byzantium and we consider ourselves Turks," Erenerol told the Turkish Daily News in 1996.
Although the Ecumenical Patriarch is widely considered the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Turkey only recognizes his role as head of Turkey's dwindling Greek community, which has shrunk to less than 5,000 in a city of more than 12 million.
Erenerol repeatedly spoke out against the patriarch's trips abroad_ characterizing them as assertions of the patriarch's universal role. He also vehemently opposed efforts to reopen an Orthodox seminary closed by Turkey in 1971 that trained generations of church leaders, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.
Earlier, this year, Erenerol resigned as patriarch to protest what he considered Turkey's increasingly lenient policies toward the Ecumenical Patriarchate_ tolerating for example Bartholomew's lobbying efforts abroad. Erenerol said Turkey was turning a blind eye as part of its bid to join the European Union. Turkey never accepted Erenerol's resignation.
"The national struggle we waged for 80 years has come to an end," Erenerol wrote in his letter of resignation. "This decision will make the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Greece happy. Now you can enter the EU."
Erenerol is survived by his wife and three children. His funeral is scheduled for Sunday in Istanbul.