Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden made a heart-warming post on Facebook for his participation in the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which took place on January 12-14.
Metropolitan Cleopas posted on his personal Facebook account photos from the Holy Synod that took place in Constantinople.
As he pointed out, “the most moving of all is the one with five Hierarchs of the Throne because none of us five imagined that, at least 35 years later, we would meet again as members of the Synod of the Sacred Center of Orthodoxy.”
In the photos, we can see the following (from the left and according to the description of Metropolitan Cleopas): “Metropolitan Kyrillos of Imbros and Tenedos, my classmate at the Rizareios Ecclesiastical School and fellow student at the Theological School of Athens, Archbishop Makarios of Australia, whom I know during my 22-year ministry in the USA, in the middle, Metropolitan Maximos of Sylivria, whom I know when we were both studying in England and hosted in the Mansion of the Archdiocese of Thyateira, Metropolitan Maximos of Switzerland, my classmate at the Rizareios Ecclesiastical School and fellow student at the Theological School of Athens.”
Regarding his participation in the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he emphasized that “the Synod is a great school as long as you are eager to understand, think, learn, process and actively participate in what is discussed and co-decided in it, under the thirty-year leadership and patriarchal wisdom of the First of Orthodoxy.”
In the other photos, the Metropolitan of Sweden said that the Synod’s work took place at the Church of the Patriarchal and Stavropegian Monastery of the Mother of God at the Spring in Balıklı, “under the watchful eye of the patriarchs and hierarchs resting in the Land of the Living.”
Metropolitan Cleopas said that he was truly blessed for his participation in the election of three Metropolitans; Bishop Athanasios of Tropaion as Metropolitan of Koloneia, Metropolitan Polykarpos of Spain (his fellow student at the Theological School of Athens) as Metropolitan of Italy, and Archimandrite Bessarion as Metropolitan of Spain.
He even commented that “the stairs leading to the dining room and the courtyard were decorated with cyclamen, which I photographed, since it will be too long before we, the people living in Scandinavia, see nature blooms again due to the low temperature of –8 degrees Celsius.”
