“Today, after sixty-five years, we do not simply praise a man; we praise and thank God, because time has revealed the wisdom of His Providence and confirmed the calling,

“Nous avons un Dieu, dont la gloire remplit le ciel et la terre, et nous lui offrons le sacrifice secret de notre confession de foi et de nos prières continuelles !

“We have been witnesses to your efforts for the unity of the Church, to your labors and struggles. And what we have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, we testify to today with gratitude,

“two forms of longing had converged there 65 years ago: love for one’s birthplace and the response to the call of the heavenly Father.

“I thank the most gracious God for the supreme gift of the priesthood: eight years as a deacon, four as a priest, 18 as a metropolitan and 35 as Ecumenical Patriarch, in the service of the entire Christian community under the dominion of the Lord, of the Great Church, of inter-Orthodox cooperation, inter-Christian and interreligious dialogues, peace and solidarity, the protection of the natural environment and the encounter between the Church and the contemporary world,

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I ›

His All-Holiness

Direct quote