Your Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your Grace Bishop Panaretos of Tamisos, Patriarchal Exarch in Lithuania, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most Honourable representatives of the civil Authorities, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reverend clergy,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beloved children in the Lord,<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fosfanariou.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4497_GS-photo-1-783x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWe convey to all of you the affection and continuous care from the august Centre of Orthodoxy, our Sacred Phanar, to a hospitable place, deeply sculpted by the unforced nobility and spontaneous openness of its pious people. A people bears witness, amidst the relentless and often levelling passage of time, to the endurance of history itself. An inner endurance which resounds, rather unexpectedly for cold observers, with the exact same pulse of the Orthodox Christians around the world. The Mother Church of Constantinople walks uninterruptedly the narrow path of the cross, carrying intact the legacy of the Apostle Andrew the First Called unto the ends of the world, through clashing rocks. Today\u2019s Gospel reading comes to remind us of this tumultuous historical path, in a realistic, at times unbearably heavy manner, abruptly interrupting every latent tendency toward religious complacency, every human need for spiritual comfort: \u201cWhosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven\u201d (Matt. 10:32)<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The confession of the name of the Lord transcends easy intellectual assumptions, is transformed into an essential foundation, into a pre-eminently ecclesiological act. Bearing upon our shoulders the heavy tradition of the Great Church of Christ, we know perhaps more fully than anyone the precise agony wrapped up in the bearing of witness before rulers and the worldly mind. The Ecumenical Patriarchate for centuries now witnesses to the truth, enduring patiently the mockery of the times. It stubbornly refuses, however, to fold the banner of the faith in order to buy a few ephemeral, conventional comforts, as there is required a fortitude of soul that abolishes narrow biological limits, a total emptying of one\u2019s own will before the mystery, a plunge into the void without a safety net, with the language of the holy Evangelist remaining intentionally harsh for the believer who seeks daily security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lord demands the transcendence of the givens of family affection within the new, final reality: \u201cHe that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me\u201d (Matt. 10:37)<\/em>. Christ introduces an absolute, non-negotiable attachment to Him, leaving man naked, exposed, divested of every earthly protective support before the grandeur of divine adoption. The centre of gravity shifts now inescapably with the phrase \u201cAnd he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me\u201d (Matt. 10:38)<\/em>. We pass violently, without any period of grace, from the sphere of theoretical acceptance to the practical, the fleshly and daily participation in the passion of the God-man. One remembers here how the ancient ascetics viewed these excesses. Eastern thought, always inclining toward symbolism, frequently enlists linguistic extremity, in order to demonstrate the absolute supremacy of the uncreated, the sweeping love of the Creator over against human capacities. Upon this vertical vertigo of existential nakedness, the voice of Peter emerges. Heavily charged with the anxiety of abandonment, it conveys our own deeply rooted, our daily hesitation: \u201cBehold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?\u201d (Matt. 10:27)<\/em>. The recompense that Christ promises abolishes instantly the narrow commercial logic of human transactions, the logic of give and take that governs our relationships. He offers the receiving of an hundredfold within history and the inheritance of everlasting life, there where human appraisals collapse with a crash and \u201cmany that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first\u201d (Matt. 10:30)<\/em>. The kingdom of God is manifested palpably as an entirely new place of existence, definitively dissolving the scales of worldly power and biological imposition. The pain of separation from beloved persons, which the believer undergoes for the sake of the gospel, is organic-like, almost alchemically, transmuted into uncreated grace, grafting him into the wider family of the Church. A brotherhood that embraces the nations, ceaselessly confirming the shattering apostolic declaration: \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free\u201d (Gal. 3:28)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our newly-installed Patriarchal Exarch is called, within the wider geographical landscape of Lithuania, to embody precisely this demanding ecclesiology of sacrifice and liturgical unity. The Right Reverend Bishop Panaretos of Tamisos assumes a heavy duty, a work of substance. The mission of this chosen Hierarch of the Ecumenical Throne corresponds fully to the historical duty of the Mother Church. She cares unceasingly, offering spiritual nourishment of Orthodox in distress, wherever they may be. His Grace served for a number of years the Sacred Centre within the walls of the Queen of Cities. He spent himself, quietly, daily, and fruitfully, in the pastoral care of the Slavic-speaking Christians of Constantinople, building relationships of a lifetime. The organic, the in-depth knowledge of the Russian language which he possesses, together with the performance of the sacred services in ancient liturgical Slavonic language and Typikon, create a bridge of consolation, a conduit of communication for the multilingual, the deeply wounded flock of the Baltic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We live, let us not deceive ourselves, in exceptionally bleak days, days when reason frequently runs dry. Suffering people, entire crowds of our refugee brothers and sisters flee anxiously to this hospitable soil from bleeding Ukraine and from other tried Slavic-speaking regions, trying to escape from the vortex of the absurd. They carry upon their flesh, engraved in their very gaze, in their silence, the indelible marks of violent uprooting, of extreme uncertainty, of stark death. They seek anxiously a piece of bread, the bread of peace, a corner to stand. They expect to behold the face of a genuine spiritual father, not of a distant administrator, of a minister of the Most High who will bend beside them to the ground, will listen to their mute, their accumulated pain, offering the healing word of comfort in their ancestral expression, there where the soul understands best. The Ecumenical Patriarchate extends its affectionate embrace with all the spaciousness that its centuries-old tradition dictates. It delivers its Exarch to these afflicted people to shepherd them with much prudence and longsuffering. It recognizes unceasingly in the somber faces of the refugees the suffering, the crucified body of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It journeys practically with those who undergo the pain of persecution, having always as a compass the exhortation: \u201cIf they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you\u201d (John 15:20)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A genuine, exceptionally sensitive child of the Great Church, piously nourished on the pure streams of Phanar piety, Bishop Panaretos preserves intact this ecumenical consciousness. A consciousness open, which stands from the first steps of his priestly course away from nationalist exclusions and sterile racial entrenchments, guarding an unnegotiable filial devotion toward the Apostolic Ecumenical Throne. The unostentatious form of his humble ministry in Lithuania distances itself consciously from every effort at worldly imposition or power. A sacred purpose remains exclusively the quiet healing of wounded souls. It fits organically, you see, into the long, into the unbroken chain of the labourers of the noetic vineyard, who, against the current of their time, willingly spent their life and transformed the narrow way of the cross into a life-bearing experience, into a luminous path for the flock entrusted to them. This ultimate enlistment under the heavy shadow of martyrdom dissolves from the very first moment any dangerous illusions of historical triumphs, the visions of earthly power. The unbearable burden of daily confession, looking horror straight in the face, measures itself unceasingly against the hard dilemmas which human history produces mechanically and unstoppably, piercing, with intolerable pressure, the very joint of biological existence. It demands at every conscious step the total, the absolute price of voluntary deprivation, where the soul tastes the fullness of divine love exclusively there; there, upon the rugged, splinter-filled wood of personal sacrifice, in that completely defenceless condition, where the human person is left naked and absolutely exposed before the unfathomable mystery of the silence of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your Grace, AXIOS!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u0397 \u0391. \u0398. \u03a0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 o \u039f\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba.\u03ba. \u0392\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u039a\u03c5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03ae \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0391\u03b3\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03a0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, 7 \u0399\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 2026, \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0399\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc \u039d\u03b1\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0391\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03a4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4o \u039c\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 Trinapolis \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u0392\u03af\u03bb\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2. \u03a3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0391\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03c5\u03c3\u03b7, \u03bf \u03a0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03c6\u03b1\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u039c\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u0395\u03ba\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0395\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf \u03a4\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba. \u03a0\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf \u03c9\u03c2 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc \u0388\u03be\u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03bf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":130502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[428,404,4,65],"class_list":["post-130566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tou-patriarxi","tag-428","tag-404","tag-pasi-ti-ktisei","tag-tou-patriarxi"],"yoast_head":"\n