” ““For the ecumenical journey says Gennadios Zervos, metropolitan bishop of the Greek Orthodox archdiocese of Italy (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) we must pray, even suffer, and love each other all the time as brothers. The ecumenical prayer is a moral and spiritual force that cultivates the great hope of working together to accomplish God’s will that we all are one thing”. It is important that “the minority Churches will feel the brotherly love and closeness of the majority Churches for their problems. As the archbishop of the Orthodox Church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, I am grateful to the Italian Catholic Church for the assistance it offers us in your country, giving us the places of worship we need”. For the Catholic and Orthodox churches, he adds, the most important thing “is to serve man, God’s icon”. Speaking of the Pope’s next visit to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, Zervos explains that the Orthodox have “great expectations and hope”: “We thank the Pope for his fraternal attitude towards our Church of Constantinople”.
