A Patriarchal Divine Liturgy was officiated by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Tuesday morning on the occasion of the feast day of St. Paisios, in a church dedicated to the 20th century saint in the northwest Greek city of Ioannina.
Co-officiating were the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos, resident Metropolitan Maximos and several hierarchs of the Church of Greece and Ecumenical Patriarchate.
A day earlier, the Ecumenical Patriarch inaugurated the new Church of St. Paisios in the lake-side city.
During the ceremony, His All Holiness also referred to the Greek-language television series “St. Paisios: From Farasa to the Heavens”, a production of the St. Maximus the Greek Institute, which was watched by millions of television viewers in Greece and Cyprus last season.
In another part of northern Greece, the Metropolitan of Veria, Naoussa and Kambania, His Eminence Panteleimon, officiated at the Great Vesper on the eve of the feast day, and later preached the Gospel at the celebrating Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior.
Patriarch of Antioch & All the East John X
In a related development from the Middle East, the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, His Beatitude John X, referred to the virtues of St. Paisios, speaking to assembled bishops and clerics during a sunset Vespers at a dedicated church to the saint in the Jaramana district, southeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
His Beatitude also reminded that he was blessed by meeting St. Paisios on Mount Athos.