Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv arrived in Imbros to participate in the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the priesthood of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
With the arrival of the Metropolitan Epifaniy and his entourage, a doxology was performed at the Metropolitan Church of the island.
Metropolitan Kyrillos of Imvros and Tenedos, who welcomed the Metropolitan of Kyiv, after the end of the doxology, addressing the Metropolitan Epifaniy, stressed:
“Your Beatitude, it is a historic, blessed and touching day and moment when the youngest Primate of the Orthodox Churches from the newest Autocephalous Church of Ukraine is here in the historic and humble Imbros, an island like a small dot in Northeastern Aegean, and your presence really fills us with joy and emotion.
Because you come here as the Primate of the Church in Ukraine to honor with us the First of Orthodoxy, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew from Imbros.
This humble place, Your Beatitude, gave to the Orthodox Church this great, modern ecclesiastical figure, the Ecumenical Patriarch.
And the fact that you went through all this trouble to travel from Ukraine and came here to pay your respects and honor and show your love to the Patriarch from Imbros is the greatest honor and even greater blessing.
Your Beatitude, we know what difficulties mean, because for us here our difficulties are intertwined with our history, our life, with our course, our continuity.
And the only thing we can humbly tell you is that the blessing and wishes of the Patriarch, the prayers of all and the love of all of us, will strengthen you, so that you can cope with the temporary difficulties and that the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine will be solidified once and for all.
And you will always remember that in the beginning, you came here, a reverent pilgrim to Imbros. Thank you, Your Beatitude, and you and your honest entourage, Archbishop Evstratiy and the other fathers who accompany you on this sacred pilgrimage.”