The President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou welcomed Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Vartholomeos) at the Presidential Mansion on Tuesday and congratulated him on his 30th anniversary as Ecumenical Patriarch.
Sakellaropoulou said that the Ecumenical Patriarch has met even the most demanding expectations for his high mission with excellence.
She also expressed the wish and her conviction that he will continue to spiritually lead the millions of Orthodox Christians throughout the world by serving the same principles, with emphasis on the individual rights and the environment, as he has done in all the previous years.
On his part, the Ecumenical Patriarch warmly thanked Sakellaropoulou for hosting at dinner in his honour and and said it was God's blessing that he was celebrating the anniversary in Greece where "I always meet with love and the Greek people's respect to the institution of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek people's gratitude to Phanar, as we all are aware from history what the Church of Constantinople had offered our nation throughout the centuries".