Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos, on Friday received at the Archdiocese the US ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, with talks touching on the sensitive issue of autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Taking to his official Twitter account, the veteran US diplomat said he conveyed a letter of congratulations from US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, regarding the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece’s historic and wise decision, as he said, to recognize the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, as well as in “…supporting religious freedom and the right of self-determination despite heavy external political pressure.”
Asked by a reporter over a recently announced initiative by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Most Godly Beatitude Theophilus III, to convene a synod of Primates of Orthodox Churches, Ieronymos replied:
“No one can convene a Pan-Orthodox synod, this is a privilege of the Ecumenical Patriarch. If the Ecumenical Patriarch invites us, we will not say ‘no’; if anyone other authority of another Church invites us, I will say ‘no’.”
Pyatt referred to Orthodoxy’s significance for Greece and Hellenism, as well as the special role of Mt. Athos, in an exclusive interview with the Orthodoxia new agency last July.
