Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

With the blessings of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Holy Metropolis of Sweden held its third annual Clergy Seminar at the St. George Cathedral in Stockholm. The seminar, which lasted three days, from October 6-8, 2017, was attended by the clergymen of the Holy Metropolis of Sweden.

The monks of Mount Athos in northern Greece have urged the left-led government to withdraw draft legislation that would allow free determination of gender identity irrespective of how it was recorded at birth.

The centre of monasticism in the Eastern Orthodox Christian world, Mount Athos has weighed in on the controversial sex change bill scheduled to be discussed in a plenary session in the Greek parliament, unequivocally condemning it.

By George Kaklikis*

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for Turkey to take and promulgate a distorted view of what’s happening beyond its borders. The Turkish foreign ministry rebuked Greece for its statements regarding the recitation of extracts from the Koran at the Hagia Sophia museum.

His Eminence Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden and All Scandinavia met with the Mayor of the northern Athens district of Maroussi, Dr. George Patoulis, who also presides of Greece’s Central Union of Municipalities, during the latter’s visit to Stockholm, welcoming him to the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. George.

“The Patriarchate is our cradle and the Turkish leadership must realise that the presence of the Patriarchate in Constantinople is one of Turkey’s most powerful ties with the EU and the West”, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said during his meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Patriarchate, Monday.

I could not help but notice that several of our readers commented on my article last week about this year's Easter celebration in Phanar, Istanbul. Some confirmed their sadness at the low attendance of the faithful for the most important date in the Orthodox calendar.

It had been a long time since I last spent the Orthodox Easter in the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the old neighborhood of Phanar.

Metropolitan of Sweden and All Scandinavia Cleopas issued a statement following the terrorist attack in the city of Stockholm, Friday, expressing solidarity to the victims’ families.

His Eminence, Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden and All Scandinavia, received an invitation from the Hellenic Society of Norway to attend a charity event they had planed for Saturday, March 18, 2017 in the Norwegian capital.