During the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Metropolis of Belgium, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received the Committee of Representatives of the Orthodox Churches to the European Union (CROCEU) on Monday, November 11, 2019 at the Offices of the Metropolis of Belgium.
The meeting was attended by Metropolitan Athenagoras of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Archimandrite Aimilianos Bogiannou, Coordinator (Ecumenical Patriarchate), Metropolitan Joseph of Western and Southern Europe (Patriarchate of Romania), Protopresbyter Dr. Sorin Selaru, Bishop Porfyrios of Neapolis, Archimandrite Nektarios Ioannou – Executive Secretary (Church of Cyprus), and Metropolitan Athanasios of Achaia (Church of Greece).
The meeting was attended by part of the procession of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Metropolitan Damaskinos of Kydonia and Apokoronos and Archimandrite Alexios Xenophontinos, abbot of the Xenophontos Monastery of Mount Athos.
During the meeting, the Patriarch emphasized the importance of having an Orthodox Committee that represents the Orthodox Churches in European institutions in one voice.
For their part, the members of the Committee expressed their thanks to the Ecumenical Patriarch for the meeting and outlined their planned actions for the immediate future.
Finally, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew invited the members of the Commission to visit Constantinople in 2020 to organize their annual meeting there.
