Statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Y. Amanatidis on the occasion of the Enthronement of His Eminence Bartholomeos, Metropolitan of Smyrna

‘This is an important day for both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the entire Christian world, acquiring a Metropolitan, after 94 years, with His Eminence Bartholomeos now at the helm of the church of Smyrna.

Our presence is meant to empower the new hierarch in his high duties and mission, the word for which is ‘love, only love’, here at the cradle of the East that has been through times of greatness and disaster where religions and cultures coexist and memory meets life and hope’.