Following the noble fraternal invitation of our Lord and Bishop, the Ecumenical Patriarch Mr. Mr. Bartholomew, the glorious and once numerous Community of Stavrodromion, welcomes you and your honourable company, with feelings of joy and honour and in a festive atmosphere, in the Holy Temple of the Holy Trinity, which celebrates today.
Our church, which is a historical and magnificent Temple in the centre of the City of cities, has a feast, we celebrate the Holy Spirit Who unites, gathers, leads to all truth, enlightens and sanctifies. The Church, the God-founded Body of Christ, which knows how to overcome the forms of this world, the historical conventions and not to conform to the limited organs of politics and any form of worldly or other power, directs its members towards Christ, without discrimination, greed, personal interests and influences, external and internal.
It is in this spirit that the Holy and Great Christ’s Church of Constantinople, girded with the servant’s towel for the sake of the salvation of the souls for whom Christ died and rose again, wiped the dust that for a long time covered your ecclesiastic body and held you in isolation and self-imprisonment. Thus, following the example of the Disciples of our Lord, because “he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean”, in humility and in the spirit of the disciples, you yesterday sat at the heavenly Table of the offering of the Body and of the honourable Blood of Christ.
You patiently awaited the Angel of the Lord who stirred the water of the spring, not of Siloam, but of Constantinople, the spring of the spiritual renewal of the Orthodox and healing of the intra-Orthodox divisions. And your inner prayer, your zeal and your patience were heard, as the Scripture says: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26).
So, have courage and faith, Most Reverend, and you other brothers, in the renewing and transforming power and energy of the Holy Spirit, who supplements our shortcomings and heals our weaknesses and the damages caused by them. Remain firm and faithful in what the Holy Spirit commanded and in what dictates your place in the Church and your sacred duty to God and to history.
So, have courage and faith, Most Reverend, and you other brothers, in the renewing and transforming power and energy of the Holy Spirit, who supplements our shortcomings and heals our weaknesses and the damages caused by them. Remain firm and faithful in what the Holy Spirit commanded and in what dictates your place in the Church and your sacred duty to God and to history.
I am convinced that His Holiness, this wise spiritual man of our Church, together with the punctual ecclesiastic act for your restoring to the unity, will be met by approval and a broad spirit, which will implement it, with the true awareness about the spiritual benefit for your people of God and the needs of your Church.
Expressing again my warm gratitude to our All-Holly Patriarch for his blessed presence and his prayerful participation in this magnificent holy church today, we wish you a much better future than your past was! May tomorrow be a tower that has today as its foundation!
Most Reverend, in memory of your sacred co-celebration today, please accept, as a tangible reminder, a small souvenir on behalf of the board of our Community, as well as on my behalf.
Many years to come!
