For the Press

On Friday, May 17, 2013, the Ecumenical Patriarchate honored the 1700th anniversary of Emperor Constantine the Great's "Edict of Milan" by hosting an international and interfaith one-day seminar in collaboration with the Council of European Episcopal Churches at the Conrad Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. Read more...

His All-Holiness was invited to contribute a message to The Huffington Post on the occasion of Orthodox Easter. He offered “a refreshing perspective on Easter: we see an open tomb, not an empty grave. The miracle of the Resurrection then is an open invitation to a new way of living that prevails over the darkness within us and around us.” Read more...

For the first time in 22 years, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will not preside over Holy Week and Pascha services at the Patriarchal Church of St. George at the Phanar. Instead, he will be on his native island of Imvros, where he will preside over services in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Imvros and in his home village of Sts. Theodores. Read more...

I want to welcome all of you to the Ben Franklin Room here on the eighth floor of the State Department for such a special occasion. It is indeed an honor for me to welcome His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, whom I have had the great honor and personal pleasure of getting to know over the years Read more...

We rise to express our gratitude and profound sense of appreciation to you, Madame Secretary, for your hospitality to us and for this tribute to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. We rise to address you, not as another dignitary among so many, but as a fellow laborer in the vineyard of peace. We rise as one who honors your commitment to the work of reconciliation and expanding the scope of dignity and justice for the whole human family. Read more...