9 December 2024
Your All-Holiness, Father and Master,
For another sacred day we warmly welcome you in the city of Attalos, in the city of the Holy Apostle Paul, who enlightened the inhabitants of this region and nurtured them the holy Christian faith and gave us an inheritance and a hope, which cannot be taken away.
The Holy Apostles Paul and Barnabas are the founders of our local Church. On this foundation the Ecumenical Patriarchate built the “stone of faith”, our Lord, in the hearts of many, who rested in the Lord, and who are always alive. Here was heard the holy preaching and shined the unfading light for centuries, until the tragic year 1922. Here God was worshipped, as the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church and our Saints have preached, and as my predecessors, the notorious hierarchs of blessed memory, the pious clergy and the faithful Orthodox people have cultivated. The witness, the history and the light of our pious Christian people shined.
On this high mountain of the Mediterranean Sea from the era of the Roman Empire until the tragedy of Asia Minor, and since then, from the silence of the Orthodox voice until the first decade of 21st century, prevailed the “martyrdom of silence”, according to the late spiritual father of your All-Holiness, but rose the “light of expectation and hope”, as he has as well said.
But when the fullness of time had come, thanks to the foresight, affection and solicitude of Your All-Holiness, the dry root slowly began to blossom, the dead bones and remains began to gain life by the almighty grace of God, the hope was reborn, from the ruins and the darkness of this great disaster rose from the temporary grave as another “Life in the Grave”, the Resurrection, the Light, the Peace. The ruins were really numerous. Unfortunately, the luminous Tziko-Panagia and the holy church of Saint Nicolas remained unchanged, remaining in ruins, this “obscure light hidden under the measure”, waiting the rise from the long and opaque immortal night, which lasted a century.
Of course it is not by chance that the only Orthodox church functioning today in Antalya is dedicated to Saint Alypios. Also, it is certainly not by chance that this church was not only rescued, but also, thanks to Your All-Holiness, became the center of the Orthodox life and witness in the blessed city of Antalya. It is not by “chance” but in a blessed “time” that today, under Your All-Holiness, as the new “founder” of this church, we celebrate and commemorate the 180th anniversary of the edification of this holy church of Saint Alypios the Stylite by its famous first founders Eustratios, Kyriakos, Ephraim and Dimitrios Danielides.
This holy Orthodox church is the only one, which was rescued among the ten magnificent churches, which existed. And it has been acquired thanks to the foresight of Your All-Holiness, with the caring love and solicitude of my predecessor, Metropolitan Sotirios, of blessed memory, for whom not only the faithful people, but even the stones of this Holy Metropolis cry his eternal memory, and for whom the gratitude of all of us cannot be expressed by words.
The city of Antalya, “bathed in the blood of heroes and martyrs”, and the Holy Metropolis of Pisidia, the clergy and the laity, welcome you to the Orthodox presence reborn from its ashes, in this holy church, where “the sorrow stopped” and “the curse has been broken”; and functions the church, which “was bought at a price”, at a great spiritual and material price, through many sacrifices of the Sacred Center of Orthodoxy and of you personally, Your All-Holiness.
Your All-Holiness, Father and Master,
At the great moments of life, of the missionary journey of the Orthodox Church, always witnessed in various testimonies, and her service in the world, in her historical witness, the words certainly do not express the reality. An eloquent silence is rather imposed.
In silence, then, before the incomprehensible mystery of God that unfolds before us and with humble prayer we celebrate this event and we – myself, my auxiliary Bishop Ambrosios of Eudokiada, the reverend clergy, fathers Konstantin Shevchenko, Ioann Koval and Gregory Okhanov, and especially the numerous Orthodox people from various nationalities and tongues, – welcome Your All-Holiness, our Father and Master, who presides at this historical panegyry, and in a mute silent prayer we all pray: to Your All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the “new founder” of our holy church, which gloriously celebrates its anniversary, may God grant many years. Amen.
And now, Your All-Holiness, bless the work of your hands and your thought, and all of us, who are waiting to hear your wise words.
