Constantinople (Istanbul), 1 September 2023. Meeting of the IAO Leadership with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

On Friday, 1st September 2023, the Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), member of the Hellenic Parliament, dr. Maximos Charakopoulos and the President of the IAO General Assembly mr. Eugeniucz Chykwin, member of the Polish Parliament, held an official visit to the Fanari, on the occasion of the New Indictus ceremony, the beginning of the new ecclesiastical year. The Ecumenical Patriarch conducted the Divine Liturgy of the Feast of the Indictus at the Patriarchal Church of St. Georgios in the Synodal concelebration. The Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine, Mr. Epifanios, also attended the prayer. The IAO advisors Dr. Kostas Mygdalis and Dr. Alexander Fomenko also participated in the delegation.

It is noted that 1st September is also dedicated, since 1989, to praying for the protection of the natural environment. Regarding this, the IAO General Secretary in his address to the Patriarch he noted “you have expressed your concern in time for the threat posed to humanity by the reckless use if not abuse of natural resources and the consequent environmental degradation, desertification, pollution of the atmosphere, the weakness access to drinking water for all. The climate change due to human behavior, which is now taking on the dimensions of a climate crisis, triggers wider re-arrangements, such as migration flows in search of better living conditions. You have pointed out all this in time and you have been called the “Green” Patriarch. I am sure that for the historian of the future, your interventions aimed at raising the awareness of the international community in matters of the environment and ecological balance will constitute a separate chapter … respect for the natural environment, respect for creation is primarily respect for the Creator and Builder of the respondents. We are all ephemeral tenants of this world. However, we have a duty to maintain the sustainability of the planet for our children and future generations until the end of the century”.

The head of the international institution of Orthodox parliamentarians concluded by acknowledging that the Ecumenical Patriarch “during all these years of the activity of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy, he stood as a moral supporter of our efforts, a spiritual guide of our decisions, a decisive helper of our actions”.

After the ceremony, Maximos Charakopoulos presented to Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan of Kyiv Epiphanius numbered copper engravings of the Holy Sepulcher, issued by the IAO for the anniversary of its 30th General Assembly.