The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, in a homily, referred to unity as a necessary condition for Orthodoxy to remain a credible testimony of faith in the modern world, following his co-officiating of a Patriarchal and Synodal Divine Liturgy at the Mother Church’s Phanar-district See. The visiting Archbishop of Nova Justiniana and All Cyprus, His Beatitude Georgios, co-officiated at the vestal service.
The Archieratical Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George was celebrated on the occasion of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.
His All-Holiness noted, among others, that “…The bond of love and the fraternal relations between our two Churches are a guarantee that we will continue the common struggle, in the face of contemporary religious, moral, cultural, social, economic, and technological challenges.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch characteristically added, “…the witness of the Church to the world does not lead to a secularization of the Church… Introversion and secularism are a misunderstanding of the ‘not of the world’ character of the Church”.