{"id":7059,"date":"2026-05-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7059"},"modified":"2026-05-23T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:00:00","slug":"the-orphanage-of-prigipou-becomes-a-hotel-the-patriarchates-difficult-decision-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7059","title":{"rendered":"The Orphanage of Prigipou becomes a hotel – The Patriarchate’s difficult decision (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The historic Prigipou Orphanage in Turkey<\/strong>, the imposing 20,000-square-meter wooden building in the Prigiponnese<\/strong>, will eventually be developed as a hotel.<\/b> <\/p>\n

The announcement was made by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew during an event on the history of the building, which was held at the island’s museum. <\/p>\n

In his speech, the Patriarch spoke both about the long history and contribution of the orphanage and the future of the building, which has suffered serious damage and is in danger of collapsing in several places. <\/p>\n

Bartholomew’s memories of the Orphanage <\/h2>\n

Mr. Bartholomew spoke movingly of his relationship with the place and recalled his visits there as a student at the Halki School of Theology<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

“Tonight on this spring evening I am among the Prigipanians, the islanders, our fellow citizens, together with the dear brother Saint of the Prigiponians, Mr. Mayor and all of you fine people present and sharing a common interest, a love, an affection for this imposing building of our orphanage, which has held in its arms so many orphaned children of the Diaspora for many decades. We mourn the late Eleni Zarifis, who bought it and offered it to the Church to become an orphanage. We remember with gratitude all the principals and teachers who protected and educated the children of the expatriate community on Christ Hill.” <\/p>\n

He then described personal moments from those years: “When I was a student at Halki, many Sunday afternoons, after Mass and lunch, the superintendent of the school, whoever it was, would bring all of us Halki students together, we would go up to the orphanage, hang out with the orphan children, play ball with them, and I have sweet memories of those beautiful years.” <\/p>\n

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“There was no other solution”<\/h2>\n

The Patriarch explained that the Patriarchate<\/strong> had considered different plans for the use of the building. Among them was the creation of two international centres, one for interreligious dialogue<\/strong> and one for ecological studies and research<\/strong>. However, the financial burden of restoration proved prohibitive. <\/p>\n

“All the efforts we made to raise the high amount required to restore the Orphanage, with the aim of turning it into two international centres – one for inter-religious dialogue and one for ecological studies and research – failed and in the end the Church, having no other solution, decided to turn it into a hotel. Of course, it was not an easy decision, especially from an emotional point of view, but it was an imperative decision before the building became one with the land, before it was razed to the ground.” <\/p>\n

He thanked those who contributed to efforts to save the building, making special mention of Pantelimon Viga<\/strong>, who has been involved with the Orphanage case for years. <\/p>\n

Collaboration between Greek and Turkish company<\/h2>\n

According to the Ecumenical Patriarch, the project will proceed through the cooperation of a Turkish<\/strong> and Greek company<\/strong>, something which, he said, has a special symbolism. <\/p>\n

“The project was undertaken by a Turkish company in cooperation with a Greek company and this is very symbolic, that the orphanage is finally becoming a symbol of unity, cooperation and friendship between Greece and Turkey.” <\/p>\n

Bartholomew noted that work is expected to begin as soon as the necessary permits are completed. <\/p>\n

The event was attended by, among others, Metropolitan of the Old Prigiponnese Dimitrios<\/strong>, scientists, The Mayor of the Islands Ali Ercan Akpolat<\/strong> and Pantelimon Vigas<\/strong> greeted the guests. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n The historic Orphanage of Prigipou in Turkey, the imposing 20,000-square-metre wooden building in the Prigiponnese, will …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}