E. VENIZELOS: Your All Holiness, your visit to us here at the Foreign Ministry is a great honor.
ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH: It is a great pleasure for me to have been invited, and you honored me with your invitation.
E. VENIZELOS: Your presence here, yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the Presidency, lent the ceremony added prestige, and this was noted in particular by Messrs. Rompuy and Barroso. We have greater potential in the coming six months, and I hope that we capitalize on this potential to the benefit of church diplomacy, which is always very important.
ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH: Thank you, Your Excellency. I express once again my great pleasure – how moved and satisfied I am – at the honor of being invited by the Prime Minister to attend the opening of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the EU. It gave me the opportunity to come to Athens once again, to Greece, and meet with beloved persons from the leadership and people of Greece, and to convey the Mother Church’s sincere and genuine blessing and affection, and its concern for the Greek people and the problems they are facing today.
I believe and hope that the Hellenic Presidency – which we all inaugurated officially, together, yesterday – will give Greece the chance to overcome the present difficulties even sooner and more successfully, thanks to the active endeavors of the Government, of the Prime Minister, of the Deputy Prime Minister, His Dear Excellency, and to bring its own experience and contribution to the European course. All of Europe is a large family. Every family has its problems. It is natural that the European family should have theirs, but – with determination, with effort, with unity – these problems can be overcome, and we will move towards a better tomorrow.
The prayers of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Your Excellency, are always with you. Our personal friendship, which goes back many years, exists and will always exist. My appreciation of your distinguished person, your learnedness, your love for the institution of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, all these facts are well known and appreciated by us very much. Thank you.
E. VENIZELOS: I thank you, Your All Holiness. We have need of your blessing and your prayers, and what you said truly resonates with our own perception of the spirit of the Hellenic Presidency and its goals. Thank you very much.
January 9, 2014