Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon described the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s move to recognize the Church of Skopje as the Archdiocese of Ohrid as a brave and caring move and added that it is another schism that was healed during the Patriarchy of Patriarch Bartholomew.
In his speech at the international conference for the 30 years of ministry of the Ecumenical Patriarch, in the ceremony hall of the Aristotle University, in the presence of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, he pointed out that the Patriarch exceeded all good expectations for his ministry and added that what distinguishes him as a personality and as a great Patriarch among his predecessors is his unconditional and boundless devotion to the responsibilities bequeathed to him by the sacred canons and the tradition of the Church.
He added that the granting of the so-called autocephaly is one of the responsibilities that Bartholomew handles with care and diligence to serve and which it had been attempted in the past to be sacrificed, on the altar of federalization of the Orthodox Church to individual autocephalous churches without a head.
“With true kindness, with nobility and morality, but mainly by not putting anything above his genuine love for the Holy Institution of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for more than thirty years he works day and night, he studies and seeks all this in the light of the need to redress all the wrongs of the past,” said the Metropolitan.
He also stressed that the Ecumenical Patriarch loves the Church of Christ with passion and strength, “it is not based on the temporary interest, but invoking the grace of the Holy Spirit, it constantly cultivates the permanent, and the useful.”
Metropolitan Emmanuel pointed out that in his speech he tried to demonstrate “what pseudology and propaganda are trying to conceal, that the Ecumenical Patriarch lives and moves only for the Church of Christ and the responsibilities of his throne, which he defends with his entire existence.”
