The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Tuesday received the Archbishop of America, His Eminence Elpidophoros, who arrived for a visit to the Patriarchal seat.
The Archbishop of America briefed the Ecumenical Patriarch, about the resumption of construction works for the new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church at Ground Zero in Manhattan, as well as for the course of the pandemic in the United States and the initiatives of the Archdiocese for the relief of all those who have fallen ill with the coronavirus.
In a related development from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, His All Holiness on Tuesday referred to the recent and shocking decisions by the Ergodan administration in Turkey to reconvert the iconic Hagia Sophia and Chora basilicas into mosques.
The Ecumenical Patriarch reminded that the Hagia Sophia is a “… architectural expression of the salvation of mankind and all of creation in Christ, belongs to all of humanity.”
In a letter to the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, Bartholomew thanked the Archons for their support for the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the aftermath of the insults to Christianity, and especially Orthodoxy, adding that Christian ecclesiastical architecture is an unsurpassed theological language.