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His refusal to respond to the invitation of the Patriarch of Jerusalem for a Primates’ synaxis in Jordan was publicly announced by Archbishop Ieronymos a while ago.
When asked about the initiative of Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem
to propose a convocation of the Orthodox Church’s Primates in Amman,
Jordan, Archbishop Ieronymos said: “I cannot answer clearly because I do
not know the criteria and where they come from. We do not know if this
is the position of the Patriarch (i.e. of Jerusalem), or whether the
Ecumenical Patriarch is aware of it or not. Not everyone can call a
panorthodox meeting. It is the prerogative of the Ecumenical Patriarch.
If the Ecumenical Patriarch calls us we will not say no, but if anyone
else who is in charge of any Church calls us I will say no.”
The statement came after a meeting with US Ambassador to Athens Goeffrey Pyatt.
The Archbishop and the head of the US diplomatic mission in Greece
discussed for one hour all current developments on refugee and Ukrainian
issues.
Goeffrey Pyatt delivered to Archbishop Ieronymos a letter from Sam
Brownback, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. The
high-ranking American official expresses his respect for Archbishop
Ieronymos’ decision to recognize the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine. As
Mr Pyatt said, it was a historic decision to recognize the sovereignty
of the Ukrainian people, and the US recognizes the wisdom with which
Archbishop Ieronymos has moved.
The Archbishop said they talked about refugee and Ukrainian issues.
The position of the Church of Greece is this: “We do not say that we do
not care about any secular matters, the developments of warfare concern
us and we are interested on them, but our criteria for ecclesiastical
issues are ecclesiastical judgments. We repsect the fears, we see the
problems but they do not have the same pressure with the ecclesiastical
criteria that lead us on our path.
