The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Sunday received visiting US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross at the Phanar-dstrict Patriarchate.
The influential US Cabinet member was welcomed with honors set forth in the Patriarchal Protocol.
The Ecumenical Patriarch and Ross discussed issues affecting the Mother Church of Constantinople, the diaspora, the situation that the Christian Orthodox faithful face in Turkey, as well as the closed Ecumenical Patriarchate orphanage on the Princes’ Islands. They also discussed Orthodoxy in the United States, on the occasion of the recent enthronement of the new Archbishop of America, His Eminence Elpidophoros.
On Tuesday, the Ecumenical Patriarch is scheduled to receive Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Antonis Diamantaris, who holds the expatriate portfolio in the Mitsotakis government.
