On the occasion of the feast day, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, officiated at the Divine Liturgy in the celebrating cathedral of the Nativity of the All-Holy Virgin, in the Besiktas district of the Bosporus metropolis.
In a related development, speaking the dour 66th anniversary of the September 1955 pogrom, the Ecumenical Patriarch referred to the “…violent, sad and tragic events to the detriment of the Greek Diaspora … during which most of the Orthodox churches of Constantinople and other monuments … were destroyed or severely damaged.”
His All Holiness spoke at the Patriarchal cathedral of St. George to a group of teachers from Greece and Cyprus, who participated in a Forum entitled “Ecumenical Initiative for the protection of the environment and culture”.
The Ecumenical Patriarch added: “…Religious fanaticism, this morbid expression of religious faith, and the ‘complex of the human god’, which does not recognize boundaries and limits, but wants man to be the absolute ruler of nature, are today the great challenge and a terrible threat for nature and culture…We are here, guarding Thermopylae, firm, courageous, gazing at Christ only, fully aware that without Him, we can do nothing”.