Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered officials to resume talks on reopening the Halki Theological School, a historic Orthodox Christian seminary near İstanbul that has been closed for more than five decades, Reuters reported on Sunday.
The move follows renewed international pressure on Ankara over the school, including from US President Donald Trump, who raised the issue with Erdoğan in Washington last year.
Trump is expected to visit Ankara next month for a NATO summit.
The Halki seminary, founded in 1844 on Heybeliada, one of İstanbul’s Princes’ Islands, served as the main theological school of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and trained generations of Orthodox clergy, including the current patriarch, Bartholomew.
The school’s higher education department was closed by the Turkish state in 1971 after a Constitutional Court ruling that private institutions of higher learning had to be affiliated with state universities, a requirement rejected by the patriarchate.
Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, whose diocese includes İstanbul, said the issue had entered a “new phase” after Erdoğan instructed Turkey’s Council of Higher Education (YÖK) to continue talks with a committee from the patriarchate.
Although there is no timetable for the school’s reopening, Emmanuel said the process had moved beyond years of inaction.
“For the patriarchate, after decades of inaction, the water has entered the trough,” he said, using a Turkish expression meaning that formal work has begun.
Emmanuel said both sides still need to complete renovations of the building complex and agree on the legal and educational framework under which the seminary would operate.
The possible reopening of Halki has long been one of the most prominent issues raised by the Greek Orthodox Church, Greece, the United States and the European Union in discussions with Turkey about religious freedom and minority rights.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Turkish government was considering reopening the school as part of Turkey’s higher education system, with academic programs overseen by the Education Ministry and student admissions handled through the national university entrance exam.
Under that plan, the school would include a theology faculty, allowing Orthodox clergy to be trained in Turkey for the first time since 1971.
Bloomberg said a draft agreement was completed after a meeting in Ankara between Erdoğan and Bartholomew. Turkish media have also reported positive signs about a possible reopening.
Bartholomew told the Hürriyet daily earlier this month that restoration, reinforcement and renovation work at the seminary was expected to be completed in the coming months.
The patriarch said Erdoğan had instructed Education Minister Yusuf Tekin in 2024 to examine the possibility of reopening the school. Tekin visited the seminary in May of that year, after which dialogue began among the Education Ministry, YÖK and the patriarchate, Bartholomew said.
“I pray that this dialogue will reach a favorable outcome and that a decision allowing the school to reopen will be taken,” he said.
Bartholomew said in Athens in May that extensive renovations to the seminary’s buildings would be completed in the coming months and that, “God willing,” an inauguration would be held in September.
The patriarchate later clarified that he was referring to the renovated building, not the formal reopening of the seminary, which still requires a license from Turkish authorities.
The US State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom said Christian communities in Turkey continue to face restrictions despite protections formally recognized under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
Against that backdrop, the reopening of Halki school will be a significant step for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Orthodox theological education in Turkey, ending more than half a century of uncertainty over the school’s future.