Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos

'If need be, he should sacrifice his throne to tell Putin, “Mr. President, I cannot agree with you and I am resigning,' the Ecumenical Patriarch declared.

In 1998, the Greek Parliament recognised the genocide of the Pontic Greek population carried out by the Turks and made 19 May a day of commemoration. The Panaghia [Virgin Mary] Soumela icon was taken to Greece when Pontian Greeks fled.

The US government has steadfastly supported the Ecumenical Patriarchate for nearly a century and has supported Vartholomeos' move to grant the Ukrainian Church autonomy and in the dispute with the Russian Church, which was high on the agenda of Vartholomeos' one-hour meeting  with Joe Biden.

The exit is an inglorious end of the tenure of a hierarch who throughout his life has enjoyed the utmost respect as one of the top Eastern Orthodox theologians

Eager to open the seminary to the world and establish it as an international Orthodox and inter-religious dialogue hub, Elpidoforos stressed that English should be one of the seminary’s teaching languages.

Metropolitan Emmanuel of France tells To Vima that Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos granted Autocephaly to Ukraine to preserve unity, debunks theory of Moscow as ‘Third Rome’.

Tsipras' visit to Hagia Sophia had an additional symbolic charge as there have been calls of late from Turkish Islamists for the museum to re-operate as a Mosque

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople is under canon law the sole authority that can grant independence to local churches, as it did with Greece in 1850.

The Patriarchate of Constantinople retains full jurisdiction in the Metropolitanates of the Dodecanese islands and elects the Archbishop of the semi-autonomous Church of Crete