A GROUP OF THE GREEK NAVY VISITS THE PATRIARCHATE

At noon on Saturday, July 24 / August 6, 2022, a thirty-member group of the Greek Navy, i.e. the crew of the tanker “Ikaria”, visited the Patriarchate in the presence of the representative of the Greek Consulate General, Mrs Christina Zacharioudaki.

The leader of this group, Mr Georgios Manzouris, in the presence of the military entourage of the representatives of the Greek Embassy in Tel Aviv, addressed His Beatitude, saying that we have come from Tinos and Alexandria to Jerusalem, journeying in the Aegean sea and we are asking for Your prayers. We consider it a special honour that three of our family members are the Seminary School of Holy Zion students. We hope they will also join the members of the Hagiotaphite Brotherhood, whom we consider heroes.

His Beatitude welcomed this group saying that we welcome you with special joy, officers and students of the Greek Navy, future officers, and protectors of our homeland. Your presence is a strength for us, it strengthens our pilgrimage and pastoral work of witnessing Christ in the Holy Land, and we are grateful for this.

The Chief of the Hellenic Navy presented the emblem of the ship of the Navy with the islands of the Aegean and a scrapbook of the Navy with ships from the 2nd AD century, dedicated to the Patriarch of Alexandria and the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The School of Officers offered His Beatitude the School’s album and the emblem of the School, while His Beatitude offered the Chief and the Officers and the members of this group the icon of the Theotokos of Jerusalem, the book of the History of the Church of Jerusalem by Chrysostom Papadopoulos and a Jerusalem blessing to all the members of this group.

From Secretariat-General