On Saturday, September 3, 2022, the first official visit began of His Beatitude Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine to Greece as the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
With the blessing of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, in whose canonical jurisdiction the local metropolis is placed, Metropolitan Stephanos of Philippi, Neapolis, and Thassos sent an invitation through the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece to the Primate of the OCU to attend, together with a delegation, the celebrations on the occasion of the commemoration of the Cathedral of the Saints of Thassos, the OCU press service reports.
This invitation came at the beginning of March this year. Thanks to the fact that the Ukrainian people and the Armed Forces of Ukraine pushed back Russian aggressors from Kyiv, this visit became possible. Last year, Metropolitan Stephanos was a member of the patriarchal delegation during the visit of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine. At the same time, he personally informed the head of the OCU about his desire to invite him to the Philippi-Thassos Metropolis next year.
On his trip to Greece, His Beatitude Metropolitan Epifaniy is accompanied by the Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod of the OCU, Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnytsia and Bar, and the Deputy Head of the External Church Relations Department, Archbishop Yevstratiy of Chernihiv and Nizhyn, as well as the clergy – Archpriest Vasyl Lylo, Archpriest Ivan Sydor, Protodeacon Vladyslav Demchenko, and Deacon Andriy Sydor.
On September 3, at noon, in the local airport outside the town of Kavala – the modern center of the metropolis, built next to the ancient Philippi – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, the head of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, and His Beatitude Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine met, to whom the official representative of the Greek authorities, Minister of National Defense Nikolaos Panaiotopoulos, a native of Kavala, also joined.
During the conversation, the superiors expressed their mutual joy at the opportunity to celebrate, in particular, a joint Divine Liturgy. “Our Church and the Ukrainian people are grateful to Your Holiness and Your Beatitude for their support, help and prayer during the ongoing unprovoked Russian war against our state,” Metropolitan Epifaniy emphasized.
Also separately, His Beatitude, through Mr. Panaiotopoulos, expressed his gratitude to the Government and people of Greece for the humanitarian aid, material, military, diplomatic, and moral support in the wake of Ukraine’s successful resistance to the Russian invaders.
After the meeting, the Prelates together with the accompanying persons left for the local port, from where they went by sea to the island of Thassos. They brought to the island the icon of the Cathedral of the Saints of Thassos, which was solemnly welcomed on the embankment.
The metropolis of Philippi, Neapolis, and Thassos is located 150 kilometers east of the city of Thessaloniki. Here, in the ancient city of Philippi, which was destroyed during the Turkish conquest of the Balkans in 1400, the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel for the first time on the European continent, formed a church community, and performed the first baptisms. One of the books of the New Testament is the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians.
