His special homeland, Ίμβρο, A.TH. is visiting from Friday. Panagiotis the Ecumenical Patriarch Mr.. Bartholomew.
On Saturday, 7 August 2021, in the morning, His Holiness officiated at the Divine Liturgy performed at I.. Church of Agios Georgios, in his village, in Agios Theodoros. Before the Dismissal, His Holiness performed a sacred Memorial Service for the rest of the souls of his late parents and all those who benefited him..
"With great emotion I returned again to the beloved Imbros, in our blessed homeland, they "played", the lost in the waves of the Aegean and bathed in light our homeland, to which we owe a lot ", the Patriarch pointed out in his speech and continued:
"I worship again the sanctuaries and the saints of our special homeland with awe and with infinite gratitude to God, because they went over 29 years, they passed overnight, since I visited you, as your compatriot but also as the Patriarch of the Nation, for the first time, in June 1992. I remember what I said in my speech that day, at the Metropolitan Church, which were the culmination of my love and adoration for Imbros and the Imbrians. I repeat an excerpt: "I came to you, my dear brothers, as Ίμβριος to Ιμβρίους, as one of you, as your old acquaintance, as flesh from your flesh, as the birth and nurture of this place and moreover by the grace of God, and as your new Patriarch… ».
It is a fact that the Imbrians, although they were scattered to the ends of the earth, from America to Australia and Europe, where they provoked exemplary, they did not stop loving, to think and remember their place in a very unique and personal and emotional way. That is why all of us Imbrians are proud to come from a blessed place, whose inhabitants, despite the untold suffering, the extreme injustice and bitter suffering they experienced in the second half of the last century, forced to leave their homeland, they were never definitively cut off from her.
But it is not only the Imbrians who love and suffer the island of their origin. Every person who visits our Imbros for the first time experiences feelings of love and sympathy. The filthy brother typically notes, Archbishop Makarios of Australia in a book he wrote about our island that “every person who visits Imbros realizes from the first moment a dynamic that transcends the boundaries of the place. It's not just what you see, but also the many that you do not see. It's not just what you hear from people, but they are also much more, the speechless, who speak kindly to your heart. It is not only the living who speak to you, but in a mystical way also the sleeping ones ".
Subsequently, His Holiness stated that the Divine Liturgy was dedicated to all the sleeping Imbrians and especially to those persons who were associated with his personal path and helped to shape his character..
"I am referring to my blessed Elder Metropolitan Meliton, to the respected and unforgettable priests Asterios and Spyridon, to my contractor Chrysanthi and to my beloved parents Christos and Meropi. And as in the Church every day we "perform the memory" of the Saints, thus declaring that the saints are always present in our lives, so the memory of our beloved dead makes them constantly present in our thoughts and in our lives., while at the same time it gives the reason not to forget their benefits to us and their offer in our life especially and in the course of our island in general. Moreover, we owe so much to the way of life of our ancestors: their deep faith in God, love for fellow human beings, the connection with nature, the happy mood, confidence in the future and certain hope, which always enlivens us.
Many of those present, the older ones, You may have been blessed to meet the blessed Elder Meliton, while those who did not know him, you will surely have heard of this enormous spiritual figure of our Church, which decisively influenced the history of our island. And especially the education of our island. The blessed Metropolitan of Meliton was not a personality of common human measures. He lived on our island sacrificially for almost 13 years and its action, mainly ecclesiastical, educational and social, has established him in the consciousness of the Imbrians and not only, as one of the modern ecclesiastical emblematic forms. He personally benefited me, sent me to the Theological School of Halki, earlier in Zografio, he introduced me to the priesthood and the priesthood at a young age and mainly introduced me to the namas of the morality of the Lantern and the Mother of Saint Christ the Great Church which he himself loved with passion and served with passion, with a "love as death" (Asm. η´ 6).
The blessed and pious Levites of Christ p. Asterios et al. Spyridon was the one who transformed the flame of the priestly call "into fire" that literally burned my bodies and led me to the decision to wear the priesthood garment at the age of only twenty-one, I just graduated from Halki. Modest hierarchical standards, which with their lives inspired you to imitate them and follow their example. I can not forget the all-night Functions of p. Star, when as a child I accompanied him to our chapels, starting at sunrise to go up the slopes to serve our saints. I can also not forget the biblical form of p. Spyridon, who was the right hand of Metropolitan Melitonos and always willing to provide us with every facility for our ecclesiastical life but also for our educational and personal advancement.
Blessed Chrysanthi, incarnate sister of the acclaimed Archbishop of America James, she was my contractor in Christ. The face of the contractor is sacred according to the tradition of our Nation, but also with the manners and customs of our island, because he enters into a spiritual relationship with the recipient and his family. I had the blessing, my godmother Chrysanthi to meet the conditions set by Saint Symeon of Thessaloniki saying: "Become patrons of the pious and teachers of the faith", since she herself was pious and had the agony and care of my spiritual and generally academic later and ecclesiastical course.
End, bringing to my mind my blessed parents Christos and Meropi, I always have in mind the meek, the nobles, the honest bio-wrestlers, the prudent and measured ordinary people, who were fully committed to the high service of raising their children. They raised us in the education and discipline of the Lord, and with their honest life they taught us every day. The Great King notes that "many times and in the smallest detail the wisdom and providence of God are manifested". That's why I saw it become a reality in my parents' lives, who, although they were oligograms, with their weaknesses and shortcomings, like all of us, with the small and at first sight insignificant they taught us in practice the great values of the Nation and the Faith ”.
Elsewhere in his speech, His Holiness urged his Imbrian compatriots living abroad to visit their island as often as possible.:
"As your Patriarch and as your fellow citizen I have never forgotten and especially I have never lost the way back to our beautiful place, on our island, the Imbros, where the society of the living and the dead is always reborn. Such a society between heaven and earth we lived today, as on the other hand we live it every time we remember our loved ones dead. I paternally urge you as your Patriarch and I warmly ask you as your fellow citizen to come to the island as often as you can, to live what is not described and not transmitted, to experience this indescribable majesty of Imbros, about which the guardian and deacon John the Eugene speaks: “Imbros the island, island of the most blessed and of the Aegean Sea is excellent ”. No matter how many adventures our Homeland went through, will always be beautiful for us Imbrians, always attractive, always tender, sweet and affectionate, ready to welcome us and hold us in her arms - as today!.
Come to light a candle in the grave of your ancestors, who eagerly await you to mention them, as we all did here together today, because to them we owe our past, our history, our upbringing, the unique ethos and way of life. The sleeping ones hide memories from us. Each of them is a story about parties and songs, the beautiful family moments, children's laughter and games, the tales from the grandmother's mouth, the aromas of the mother's food and the freshly baked bread of the yard oven, the prayers and faith of the people. Our sleepers still talk about mourning and mourning, for death, the persecution and persecution of our island, the agony for tomorrow, the pain of the outburst, the rage for the unjust. They talk to us and tell us that the soil that musked at dawn and dusk, now it is not the same. He complains and groans, because his bosses are missing, farmers and stockbreeders, the warriors, and their queens are now demolished. That's why, when we come, when we return to our island, it is like giving the place a chance to live again, to breathe, even for a little while, to rediscover his identity. It is like giving our dead the assurance that there is a future and hope and that Imbros will continue to live with its Roman soul and of course, never abandoned by her children. May God rest our beloved dead. May their memory be eternal and unforgettable ".
Concluding his speech, His Holiness gave his paternal wishes and his patriarchal blessing to those who are celebrating their namesakes today., Pi. Okumousi Star, Priestly Head of Agios Theodoros, whom he congratulated for his hard work and dedicated ministry.
Immediately after, the Ecumenical Patriarch, in the presence of Rev.. Metropolitan of Imvros and Tenedos, of I.. The clergy of the Diocese and a large number of believers, buried in the adjacent Cemetery of the village, part of the bones of the late Metropolitan of Serres, the venerable Apostolos (Christodoulou), who came from Agios Theodoros and had been a professor and headmaster of Halki.
"By the grace of God we survive"
In the afternoon of the same day, His Holiness officiated during M.. Evening, in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in his village. In his speech, including, recalled that a few days ago fifty years of forced "silence" of I. Halki Theological Seminary and expressed his disappointment with the fact that despite high-level calls for its reopening, the Turkish Government is not responding.
Elsewhere in his speech, His Holiness referred to the occasional difficulties and as an example cited the expropriation of the Mount Athos Shares and their property., following a government decision in the 1940s.
"By the grace of God we survive. We exist. We are reborn. We are being reconstructed. We continue our existence, our struggle, our historical presence, our Christian testimony in this place that belongs to us. We did not come from outside, we were born, we grew up here, our ancestors, our ancestors, generations, on these two islands, of Imbros and Tenedos. It is our place, we are not epilepsy, we are not strangers. ”
Immediately after, he inaugurated a collective exhibition of paintings by Imbrian Artists in the hall of the "Cultural Association of Agios Theodoros".
The manufacture, in the port of the island, dozens of Umbrians, headed by Rev.. Metropolitan of Imvros and Tenedos Mr.. Cyril, reserved a warm welcome to the Patriarch, who then performed the Doxology performed on I.. Metropolitan Church of Panagia. The Archbishop of the island welcomed him with words of love, and the Patriarch, obviously moved, expressed his joy and emotion, who will celebrate in his hometown, together with his compatriots, the 60 years of his priesthood.
During his stay, the Patriarch will officiate at the Temples of the other villages, and will attend many events organized in his honor by I.. Metropolis of Imvros and Tenedos.
The highlight will be the Patriarchal Divine Liturgy that will be performed on Friday, 13 August, to I.. Metropolitan Church of Panagia, where His Holiness before 60 years ordained a deacon.