A Turkish court on Monday dropped charges against Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Turkey-based spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, of barring a Bulgarian priest from conducting religious services.
The court, which also dropped the same charges against other top church leaders, said it would announce the reason for its decision at a later date.
The case represented a challenge to Bartholomew's authority and went to the heart of how this Muslim country defines secularism.
Kezban Hatemi, an attorney for the Bartholomew I, welcomed the decision. The acquittal comes as Turkey is under pressure to expand religious freedom as part of its bid to join the European Union. EU officials have criticized Turkey for state intervention in religion.
"A secular state should not get involved in religious affairs," Hatemi said.
But Haluk Perk, an attorney representing the Bulgarian priest, disagreed.
"We think everyone should have the right to practice their religion," Perk said, vowing to appeal the decision.
Bartholomew and 12 senior clerics were charged in this predominantly Muslim but secular country on rarely invoked charges of "preventing others from observing faith and conducting religious services" after the priest was dismissed in 2002. None of the defendants attended Monday's hearing; one of them died during the course of the trial.
The charges carried a maximum sentence of five months in prison.
The charges against the men were brought by Bozhidar Chiprov, head of a Bulgarian Orthodox Church foundation.
Chiprov's lawyers said Bartholomew and his Holy Synod did not have authority to dismiss Konstantin Kostov, the Bulgarian priest, because the Bulgarian church in Istanbul had been separated from the Patriarchate in 1840 amid conflicts between the two.
Chiprov's lawyers said the priest was punished after he refused to refer to Bartholomew in prayers and refused to conduct religious services and issue baptism and marriage documents in Greek.
Bartholomew's attorney had argued that the secular state should not get involved in the case.
Turkey has long kept close tabs on the patriarch, a subject of suspicion because of his close ties with Turkey's traditional regional rival, Greece.
The European Union on Friday agreed to open membership talks with the mainly Muslim nation in October, but Turkey must move forward with democratic reforms, including improving the rights of religious minorities, before it can join.
The patriarch has spiritual authority over the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians and directly controls several Greek Orthodox churches around the world.
But Turkey has long disputed that international role and recognizes him only as the religious head of Turkey's dwindling Greek Orthodox community of around 3,000.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate dates from the Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, in 1453.