“The flame of our culture is still burning in the distant Odessa, where the members of the Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends) met through cultural institutions such as the Hellenic Foundation for Culture,” said the Deputy Foreign Minister for Diaspora Greeks, Antonis Diamataris, on his Twitter account, who is currently visiting Odessa.
During his two-day visit to Odessa, Ukraine, Antonis Diamataris met with Greek diapora organisations, Greek business people and representatives of Greek shipping companies as well as with local authorities.
The Deputy Foreign Minister, accompanied by the Consul General of Greece in Odessa, Alexios Marios Lymperopoulos, visited the premises of the Consulate General of Greece in Odessa, where he held a meeting with the Chairwoman of the Federation of Greek Communities of Ukraine, Alexandra Protsenko Hretska, and Greek people living in Odessa. “Thank you for having our homeland in your heart and soul,” the deputy foreign minister said on Twitter after the meeting.
Antonis Diamataris also met with the Acting Head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, Svetlana Shatalova, and Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov, in Odessa Governorate. Greek diaspora in Ukraine is a bridge of friendship between the two peoples, said Diamataris to Shatalova, as he wrote on Twitter.
The deputy minister also visited the Holy Trinity Church of Odessa, “where the Orthodoxy and Greek community has sustained the flame for more than two centuries,” he said on Twitter.
Source: ANA-MPA
