In his speech attended by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and Metropolitan of Brusa Elpidophoros spoke about the work and the life of Patriarch Photios of Constantinople as well as the history of the Halki seminary.
As the Metropolitan said, since the closure of the Halki seminary, “the Patriarchate and Orthodoxy have lost, because a beacon of theological thinking with deeply orthodox and traditional roots coming from the Church Fathers has darkened; Christianity has lost because a nursery of Gospel workers was lost; Turkey has lost since it was deprived of the privilege to host an institution of higher education of World Orthodoxy and missed the opportunity to host the future leaders of the Orthodox world at their most sensitive age; but Islam has lost too.”
“We believe that the closure of the Halki seminary was a great loss for everyone,” while he emphasized: “Likewise, we believe that the expected reopening of our seminary will be a gain for everyone, for the Patriarchate, the Orthodoxy, the Greek diaspora, Turkey, Islam. It only remains to break the stereotypes that keep us stuck, to rise to the occasion and to see our future which will dispell the clouds and the old dark mentality.”
