The heavy national mourning that engulfed all of Greece left its mark on the celebration of one of the most important days for the Church – the Week of Orthodoxy. The President of the Republic canceled the established meal, which she institutionally lists after the end of the panegyric to the synodal high priests. The first citizen of the country was “present” in the Metropolis, along with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Speaker of Parliament Konstantinos Tassoulas, Ministers of Education and Religion Nikis Kerameos, Health, Thanos Plevris, Mayor of Athens Kostas Bakoyannis and of course the leadership of the Armed Forces and security forces, etc.

Shaken by the tragedy, the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Jerome, performed a holy requiem for the dead after the doxology. “Holy Week came earlier this year. We are experiencing a severe national disaster,” he said. “And there are no words to describe human pain. Only those who have lost their people can speak of this. But they are inconsolable because they are experiencing the loss of loved ones. And in their inexpressible despair, they can say, like Christ: “My God, my God, why did you leave us?” On Good Friday this year we live earlier. And we all (like the Virgin Mary, who, like a mother, mourned Christ) mourn for these our children, “- he emphasized with feeling.

He added: “Death is always unnatural, disgusting, disgusting. Especially when young people who are more identified with life are lost. Then we too lose hope. Because the continuity of life is interrupted, as it were. And let death win. But this is even more vile. Because if we sink into despair, we become the living dead. I can’t say anything more. I kneel before you under the weight of this early parting. And how you gently cradled your children, so gently, lovingly, I tell you: the only way to hug them again is to believe that death does not have the last word. Resurrection has it. So the memory of our loved ones remains alive and resurrected, truly “eternal”.

A prayer for the victims of the earthquakes and the Tempi accident was also held in Istanbul in the presence of Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias. The Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of Orthodoxy was served in the Patriarchal Church of St. George, where is His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and His Beatitude Archbishop of Nea Justinian and All Cyprus George. This was the first visit of the primate of the Cypriot Church after his recent election.

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