Athens, 23 July 2025. Participation of the IAO Secretary General to the 15 WHIA General Assembly

On July 23, 2025, the Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, participated in the 15th General Assembly of the World Hellenic Inter-parliamentary Association (WHIA), which took place in Athens, in the Senate Hall of the Hellenic Parliament. WHIA is an interparliamentary organization in which members of parliament and senators of Greek origin from all over the world participate.

In his speech, the head of the IAO referred in detail to the challenges that Orthodoxy is facing on various fronts. “And rightly, your General Assembly highlights with its resolution the dangers that threaten it, and especially the trials of our ancient Patriarchates. Dangers for which we, as the IAO, have expended all our strength in recent years.”

In fact, he made the following specific references to:
• The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which does not enjoy its inalienable and self-evident rights. It is deprived of its legal status, has arbitrarily lost part of its property, and is unable to operate the School of Chalki.
• The Patriarchate of Antioch, where the situation is, without exaggeration, tragic. Our Roman Orthodox brothers, grandchildren of glorious Byzantium, as well as the rest of the Christians, are under the threat of the sword of the new leaders of Syria.
• The Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which is at the epicenter of a cruel war, in which the victims are primarily innocent woen and children, the Christian presence is threatened by fundamentalists who seek to change centuries-old historical reality using force.
• The Holy Mount Sinai, where the Sinai Brotherhood is facing the uncertainty caused by the recent decision of an Egyptian court, as well as the apparent reluctance of the Egyptian leadership to fully resolve the issue.
• The Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, where the arbitrary incursion of the Russian Church into the African continent has created numerous problems that hurt the body of Orthodoxy, placing obstacles in the vast missionary work of the Patriarchate.

Finally, he concluded, emphasizing that “as is understandable, the criticality of the moments does not allow for any complacency. The mobilization of all the forces of Hellenism is required, which […] must take the lead in actions and interventions, in order to support the suffering Christian world of the wider East, before faits accomplis are consolidated which will not be possible to overturn later.”

Moreover, Maximos Charakopoulos congratulated US State Senator Leonidas Raptakis on his re-election as President of the WHIA and wished the new Board of Directors success in their work.

You can see the video of the speech of Mr. Maximos Charakopoulos: