The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received on Thursday, 11 May 2023, at the Phanar, Metropolitan Arsenios of Austria, with Bishop Paisios of Apameia, as well as the Roman Catholic Bishop Ägidius Zsifkovics of Eisenstadt, former Evangelical Bishop of Burgenland Mandred Koch, and a group of Orthodox Pilgrims, Roman Catholic and Protestant Faithful from Austria, who are currently taking part in a pilgrimage to Constantinople and Cappadocia.
The Ecumenical Patriarch, in his short greeting in German, welcomed the Hierarchs and the pilgrims and expressed his joy for their joint visit, which, he said, is a tangible expression of experienced ecumenism, in a dialogue of life. The Patriarch then pointed to the importance and power of honest dialogue, for which, he said, there is no alternative.
“We praise the Triune God for his many blessings, for our dialogues, for the ecumenical meetings, for our common hopes. We experience and know that our ecumenical journey is not a search for the truth, but an encounter in the truth which is our Savior Jesus Christ”, said the Ecumenical Patriarch and wished God to grant to His Church dedicated theologians with a spirit of openness, who will work for the achievement of blessed Christian unity.
At the end of his address, The Ecumenical Patriarch reminded that on 11 May 2023 our Church honors the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius, enlighteners of the Slavs, as well as that, this day is also the day of the inauguration of Constantinople, in the year 330, expressing the wish that their pilgrimage to the “City of Cities” and Cappadocia would be blessed.
Photos: Nikos Papachristou / Ecumenical Patriarchate
