Athens , 1 September 2010

Mr. Droutsas: I would like to express my warm thanks for today’s meeting. To me, everytime I am here in Fener, our Ecumenical Patriarchate, every time I sit next to you, is a great joy and honour. You know my deep feelings.

Allow me, your All Holiness, to say that we all watched with great emotion the mass celebrated recently at the Sümela Monastery. It was the most important moment for Orthodox Christianity and the Hellenic nation.

It was with great satisfaction that we also heard the news of the opening of the Halki Seminary in order to host a significant exhibition. Allow me to express the wish that the Theological School of Halki will reopen soon in order to serve its true purpose.

In any event, we note and see positive steps vis-à-vis the Ecumenical Patriarchate, steps in the right direction. We welcome them. The road is certainly long and definitely not easy, but you know that we will follow it together and we will always be on your side on this course, Your All Holiness.

Once again, let me thank you for this special day and the unique experience of attending today’s mass celebrated by you and let me also wish you a good ecclesiastical year, to you and all other members of the clergy.

His All Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister for your wishes, your feelings, for everything you, personally, and the government to which you belong have been doing for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Community here. It was a unique opportunity for us today, this significant day for the Ecumenical Patriarchate marking the start of the ecclesiastical year, to welcome you and your esteemed colleagues, to pray together for a good year for our Nation, our Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in particular, knowing the problems it has been facing, which, however, are being resolved one after the other, as you rightly said.

There are positive developments, there are steady steps in the right direction, and with regard to the remaining pending issues, as you recently also said, we are waiting for words to be turned into deeds. There have been many promises on the Halki issue and other long-standing problems of the Patriarchate, and we want to believe that there is a political will to resolve them and that soon we will have tangible deeds instead of just words.

We would like to thank the Greek government and Mr. Papandreou, personally, for his ongoing interest in the mother Church. We are all looking forward to the continuation of our good cooperation to our mutual benefit also in future. We appreciate the efforts of the Greek government and particularly your Excellency, as the competent official on foreign matters, towards resolving the problems that still exist between Greece and Turkey. We are pleased with the efforts undertaken on both sides and we hope they bear fruit, in order for our two neighbouring countries to be able to move ahead as two neighbours, as friendly peoples, as two countries – Greece and Turkey - working towards the joint achievement of peaceful objectives and in order to ensure stability and prosperity in the region.

We wish you, therefore, good luck with your efforts, send our greetings, love and thanks to the Prime Minister and we hope that next time you visit, as we talked, we can also visit Halki, which you have never visited before, as well as my humble home island, Imvros. It will be a great pleasure and will give strength to the few remaining people there.