Other guests at the unprecedented Christmas reception included the heads of Catholic, Armenian, Protestant and Assyrian Churches in the country, along with foreign diplomats and more than three dozen mayors of Turkish cities who hail from Georgia, Syria, and Bulgaria.
In a brief statement, His All Holiness referred to the interest shown by İmamoğlu for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ethnic Greek community of Constantinople, while he called on members of the latter to preserve the centuries of cultural legacy bequeathed to them by their ancestors.
The Ecumenical Patriarch also thanked İmamoğlu for his warm words in a documentary commemorating the 30 years of Bartholomew’s enthronement as Primate of the Mother Church.
In a related development, the Church of Greece’s newly enthroned Metropolitan of Peristeri, His Eminence Grigorios, visited the Ecumenical Patriarchate this week to pay his respects to the Ecumenical Patriarch and request his blessing.