Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Photos by J. Mindala
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew delivered a major address on Friday, August 22, 2025 at the Ecumenical Celebration – Time for God’s Peace at the Filadelfia Church in Stockholm, Sweden, on the crucial importance of unity among Christians of differing faith traditions. His All-Holiness was a featured speaker at Ecumenical Week, a series of ecumenical anniversary celebrations commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the historic Stockholm Conference of 1925, a milestone in the improvement of relations between the Churches, when more than 600 church leaders from 37 countries gathered for an unprecedented meeting.
The Ecumenical Patriarch urged the continuation of that noble initiative for unity, emphasizing that it was all the more important in light of today’s deep global divisions. “We owe it to our global community,” His All-Holiness stated, “to be united in faith and action. We can only offer a credible witness when we stand together in prayerful invocation of God’s peace that surpasses our understanding and achievements. These are the lessons that we have and learned from our participation in the Central and Executive Committees, as well as the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.”
is All-Holiness emphasized that “the commitment of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the vision and mission of the World Council of Churches, from its earliest formative and creative years as one of its founding members, through even the most difficult and contentious periods, has always been unwavering and paramount because apart from our dedication and devotion to fulfill the Lord’s prayer and commandment that his disciples may be one, we are convinced that our ongoing efforts towards unity are more necessary and vital than ever before.”
That is the case, he explained, because “today, we can see unfolding before our eyes an increasingly divided world,” “never before has it also been possible for one group of human beings to eradicate as many people simultaneously. Moreover, never before has humanity been in a position to destroy so much of the planet’s environmental resources.”
The crisis thus created is a challenge for Christians of all faith traditions: “This predicament presents Christian churches and us as Christian leaders with radically new circumstances which demand of us a revolutionary commitment to peace, the same commitment expressed and exercised by our visionary forebears in the ecumenical movement.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch also declared: “We must recognize that all human beings, and not only a few privileged, deserve to share the resources of this world. Moreover, making peace is difficult and painstakingly unrewarded. Still, it is the only hope for the restoration of our broken and fragmented world. By working to remove obstacles for peace by working to heal human suffering and social injustice, as well as by working to preserve the national environment, we are assured that God is with us.”
Christian religious leaders and dignitaries from various nations, as well as the Archon leadership and other Archons from the United States, were present at this groundbreaking address.
