Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomoew will meet with Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens today, Monday April 15, at the Archdiocese of Athens.
It is recalled that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will participate in the 9th International “Our Ocean Conference”, which will take place from 15 to 17 April 2024 in Athens, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Mr. Giorgos Gerapetritis, during a press conference for the presentation of the International Conference, pointed out that this is one of the major initiatives for the protection of the environment and especially the protection of oceans and waters, “an issue that has high global stakes, however, for our country it is also an existential issue”.
He also emphasised that the participation in this international conference is rather high, with 120 delegations of member states, namely 113 states and 7 international organisations. Among them are 12 heads of state and government, especially from America, Oceania and the Far East, and 50 foreign affairs ministers and deputy ministers, but also ministers of the environment and ministers with responsibility for waters and oceans.
He stated that all the Mediterranean countries have been invited and all will be represented, while there will also be high-level representatives at the level of organisations, such as the president of the European Council Mr. Charles Michel, the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Mr. Virginijus Sinkevičius, as well as His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
It is known that in the last three decades, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been internationally recognised as “the Green Patriarch”, because he highlighted the religious and spiritual roots of the ecological crisis, while at every opportunity he points out the need for cooperation between all social factors and scientific disciplines, to solve the problem of climate change and environmental pollution. He also played an active and important role in the preparation of the Paris Agreement, while he has been awarded various prizes for his international ecological vision and important environmental action.
However, due to an extraordinary change in the schedule of the official visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Greece, his scheduled visit to the city of Peristeri on Tuesday 16 April 2024 has been postponed. It will be rescheduled to a new date to be announced shortly.
