CONSTANTINE AN. TASSOULAS: Your All-Holiness, allow me to welcome you and your esteem delegation to the Presidential Mansion, with feelings of joy and, above all, gratitude, for your invaluable contribution during these 35 years of your patriarchal ministry, as well as the 65 years of your priestly ministry.
You represent an institution of immense stature, as you are the spiritual leader of millions of Orthodox Christians throughout the world. And allow me, in addition, to express the utmost respect that the Greek State holds for you and the Ecumenical Throne, which always follows with interest, with anguish and with support your efforts, which you undertake with great vigor, overcoming whatever challenges the Great Church faces.
I also wish, and I do so feel that I represent the Greek people as well, to congratulate you on your speech two days ago at the National Representation, in the Hellenic Parliament, where you were rightly honored with The Gold Medal of the Palladium of the Republic, as you aptly called it.
Your speech was very well received by the Greek people. “Those who have heard have borne witness,” as you might say yourself and the emphasis on these three important elements, that are the pillars on which the modern world rests or ought to rest, that is, human dignity, care for the environment and the need for peace, this emphasis, then, and this underscoring, have shown how firmly you grasp global problems and how valuable the contribution of Orthodoxy and religion in general can be to the global reconciliation, which we need, especially when one considers how troubled our days and times are.
Your All-Holiness, your citizenship is in the heavens, as you said. Yet your witness is also here and it illuminates the world. And this witness is important, that is why you see on your face all this acceptance, all this welcome and all this recognition.
You defend sacred pilgrimage sites and extinguished lamps through pilgrimage visits to Cappadocia, Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace. You defend interfaith dialogue. You defend the unity of Orthodoxy. And two days you made the emblematic statement that if there is no peace among religions, there can be no peace in the world.
I therefore hold on to this observation, which highlights just how important the mission you have undertaken is for interfaith dialogue and for the unity of Orthodoxy. Our hopes and trials, which hopes and trials of the Nation are also represented by the Patriarchate, rest upon your shoulders and your spiritual effort, so that peace and reconciliation in the world may be the result of your admonitions to mankind and your supplications to God.
With these thoughts and with the prayer that God will bless you so that you may continue your mission with the same unparalleled zeal, I welcome you and your distinguished delegation here today at the Presidential Mansion.
ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW: Your Excellency, Mr. President of the Hellenic Republic, I and my honorable and distinguished companions are grateful that you have taken time out of your valuable schedule to receive us and honor us here today at the Presidential Mansion.
During your highly successful presidency at the Hellenic Parliament, I had the opportunity to be received by you, and I recall that, following your address, I said to you that I admired your eloquence and the beauty of your Greek speech. Today, this assessment of mine is confirmed and I would add that it is not only your eloquence that moves us and inspires our admiration, but also your sentiments toward the Mother Church and toward my own humble person. Sentiments that fill us with emotion, but also with strength and encouragement, for the humble ministry that we carry out from the martyred Phanar, all these years.
Indeed, we have the honor and privilege, as those who serve at the Holy Centre of Orthodoxy, to represent an institution that has survived through the centuries under various political conditions and upheavals, yet by the grace of God, an institution that manages to survive and bear witness to the whole world—a witness of love, unity, reconciliation and respect for the sanctity of the human person.
I stress in all my speeches, and two days ago in the Hellenic Parliament, where I had the highest honor to address the representatives of the Greek people, that for the mission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the human being is at the center of all our thoughts, words and activities. For every person, every human being, is unique and irreplaceable, because they were created in the image and likeness of God. For this reason, we respect the sanctity and uniqueness of every person.
Racism and racial discrimination are far from the ethos of Orthodoxy, the Great Mother Church of Christ embraces all people, all races of the earth, and proof of this is that within the flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is scattered throughout the world, there are not only Greeks but also Orthodox Christians of many other national origins and cultural backgrounds, whom we always serve with the Phanar as our center, with the same affection and the same love.
You highlighted three key points from my humble speech on Tuesday at the Hellenic Parliament. These are, as you said, the pillars of our thoughts and actions. For these three points that you highlighted and emphasized are the essence of the evangelical message of Christianity. Always, as I said, centered on the human person and with love as the guiding principle of our preaching, love, which is the very essence of Christianity.
It is not always easy for the Patriarchate to carry out its ministry from its centuries-old seat in the Phanar in Constantinople. We face trials and challenges. Ethnophyletism, unfortunately, Mr. President, has been revived after the collapse of the communist regime, where it once prevailed. And this ethnophyletism, which in 1872 was condemned as heresy at a Great Council convened at the Phanar, continues to divide Orthodoxy again today, for the unity and cooperation of which the Ecumenical Patriarchate, especially during the years of my humble Patriarchate, has made many efforts. We sought to strengthen intra-Orthodox and inter-Orthodox dialogue and cooperation, we expedited the convening of the Holy and Great Council, which met ten years ago in Crete, we did everything we could as the First-Throne Church, which has not only the right but also the responsibility to guide and coordinate pan-Orthodox affairs. However, I repeat, the curse of ethnophyletism has entered even the body of the Orthodox Church and plagues Orthodoxy today. Unfortunately, our Slavic brothers, led by the Holy Church of Russia, are primarily the ones who are disrupting pan-Orthodox unity. We will continue our work in good conscience, always with the support of the honorable Greek State, to which, on the occasion of our meeting, I convey the gratitude and blessing of the Mother Church and express my confidence that in the future we will always have the full support of the Greek State and of each successive Greek government so that we may readily fulfill the Ecumenical Mission of our Patriarchate.
We thank you very much for the honors you bestow upon my humble person and through me, upon the Mother Church during these days we are in the glorious city, as well as last year, during my visit, when you were the newly elected President, you had just assumed office but did not withhold your love and your expressions of honor toward us.
We are grateful to you and pray that the Holy God may watch over Greece, He may protect the expression of the unity of the Greek nation, which is your Excellency, you may have health in your family and in your personal life, happiness and long life and Greece may live in a climate of prosperity, unity and peace. Amen!
