“I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the President of the Greek Parliament for his full support for our work. The Greek Parliament as the seat of the international institution in which we work with Orthodox MPs from 25 countries is a point of reference for us. We are grateful for that and we thank the president of the Greek Parliament for his wishes and for his sincere willingness to cooperate and contribute to the success of our mission.” Those were the words of the new General Secretary of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (IAO), Maximos Charakopoulos, after the meeting he had with the President of the Greek Parliament, Konstantinos Tasoulas, who congratulated him on taking up his new duties.
During the meeting, the newly elected secretary general informed Tasoulas about the decisions of the 27th Annual General Assembly of IAO, which was held by teleconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the general secretary briefed him on the activities to be implemented for the following period, focusing in particular on the publications:
- “The Hagia Sophia in the World” with the aim of highlighting the special relationship of the Orthodox with the Wisdom of God, to which is dedicated the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, a symbol of ecumenical orthodoxy, which was recently desecrated by its conversion into a mosque;
- “The Inter-Orthodox Presence of Mount Athos during the years of Ottoman rule 1430-1912” as a contribution to the anniversary events for the 200 years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution of 1821.