Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Tsipras saluted the longstanding efforts of the Patriarch to advance inter-faith dialogue, both in the Middle East and around the world, noting that this is a time of great tension in the region surrounding Greece, which finds itself in the midst of three overlapping crises: “The economic crisis in Europe which has not settled yet, the refugee crisis, in which we are receiving the migration waves, and the destabilization due to wars in the broader region ... We believe that we will manage to cope and at the same time upgrade Greece's role in the surrounding region".
On his part when receiving the Patriarch, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, pledged the state’s full support to the Patriarchate's efforts to persuade Turkish authorities to reopen the Theological School of Halki, an orthodox seminary that was forced to close in 1971.
Opening the conference, Pavlopoulos said that the Middle East “can and must become again a region of peaceful and constructive coexistence of nations and a cradle of civilizations". The conference was also addressed by Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, who underlined Greece's geostrategic importance as a crossroad between continents and its cultural ties to various peoples in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Ecumenical Patriarch noted the peaceful co-existence of the three monotheistic religions for centuries in the region, while bemoaning the skewing of Islamic teachings by radical terrorist groups. “The most horrible crimes are being carried out in the name of God,” the Patriarch told the conference. “When there are crises related to religion, it requires delicate diplomatic management, in collaboration with religious leaders."
