LAST UPDATE: 20:10
Today, Friday, February 5, 2021, day of the feast of Saint Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew addressed a speech during a festal reception that took place at the synodikon of the Theological School of Halki. During his speech the Ecumenical Patriarch highlighted the contribution of Halki Seminary to the Church and its unjust cessation of operation, half a century ago.
In the Divine Liturgy that was performed in the Katholikon of the Holy Monastery, the Ecumenical Patriarch reminded that his predecessor, Patriarch Germanos IV, founded the Theological School of Halki, in 1844.
“In its 127 years of operation and the four periods of its institutional organization, about a thousand students, bearers of the “spirit and ethos of Halki” graduated from the Theological School of Halki. The main characteristic of the graduates is the unwavering faith in the tradition of the Church and their interest in their fellowman”
The Fathers of the Church, led by the Three Hierarchs and Saint Photios the Great, were the model of theological work, who inspired and strengthened us. The recently celebrated Three Great Ecumenical Teachers studied, loved, and cultivated the Greek alphabet and used the Greek language and philosophy to formulate the orthodox faith in the Triune God.
We also admired the thoughtful Saint Photios the Great, this “giant figure in the history of Greek letters”, the assertive ecclesiastical man, the defender of the rights of the Ecumenical Throne, the uncompromising bastion of Orthodoxy and a true preacher of the truth. Patriarch Photios gave his ecclesiastical testimony with great zeal, courage, and determination. God blessed his struggle and works, the Great Synod of Constantinople of 879/80, which remains in the consciousness of the Church as the ‘8th Ecumenical Synod, a model of ecclesiological and canonical self-consciousness and synodal work.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch also stressed:
We all understand why the closing down of the Theological School of Halki was a black page in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ and theology.
From 1971 onwards, Halki Seminary did not offer its fruits to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to Orthodoxy. For 50 years the Great Church has not had the opportunity to educate new officials in Halki, theologians with ecclesiastical ethos, with training and theological imagination, with cultivation of soul and sensitivity”.
The Ecumenical Patriarch then referred to the late Metropolitan of Stavroupolis, Maximos. It is recalled that on the initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarch the remains of the late Hierarch of the Throne were transferred a year ago from Athens, where he was originally buried, to Valoukli Cemetery near the other High Priests of the Ecumenical Throne.
