At the Official Dinner in Honor of His All Holiness Hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Remarks and Toast of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW

The Ben Franklin Room
The State Department
Direct Archdiocesan District
Washington, DC

November 5, 2009

* * *

Madame Secretary,
Your Excellencies the Ambassadors of the Many Nations here represented,
Your Eminence Archbishop Demetrios and brother Hierarchs,
Honored guests and friends,
Beloved spiritual children in the Lord,

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. We rise to honor a friend of our Eparchy in this great Nation, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Ten years ago, you honored the Church of Constantinople and our beloved brother Archbishop Demetrios by attending his enthronement as Archbishop, and today we have traveled to America to honor the tenth anniversary of his irenic and fruitful stewardship of the Church.

 But most of all, we rise to honor a true friend of our Ecumenical Patriarchate, a friend and fellow peace-maker who has traveled to Phanar twice as First Lady of this great Nation, with your daughter Chelsea, and to whom we look with admiration and respect. Indeed, you pioneered the effort that achieved having the first sitting President of the United States, your beloved and respected husband President Clinton –with whom we were pleased to meet last week – visit our Ecumenical Patriarchate.

All of your initiatives for peace and reconciliation around the world – whether in Zurich, in Turkey, in Pakistan, and throughout the Middle East, are characterized not only by your skillfulness and wisdom, but also bear the approach that a loving mother has for all peoples of the world.

Your sensitivity and awareness of the purely spiritual mission of our Ecumenical Patriarchate; the difficulties that we face in fulfilling that mission, the complexity of worldwide Orthodox Christianity and the importance of the Mother Church of Constantinople for the cohesion of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians – all these insights you possess in abundance. We do not say that others lack this consciousness; rather, Madame Secretary, we do say that you hold within your extensive world-view a remarkable comprehension of global political, economic and religious circumstances. In addition to understanding what is power and might, you know as well what is holy and right. And your respect for the diversity of religious expression in the world makes you a champion of human rights and religious liberty. Leading as we do the community of minorities in our country, we have an especial appreciation for the gifts that you bring to the world of diplomacy.

The new millennium is witnessing the resurgence of Orthodox Christianity in regions where oppression and suppression reigned for entire generations. This rebirth of faith and religious liberty has become, in many cases, intertwined with national aspirations. Most recently, on your visit to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, you witnessed aspects of this revival of faith in lands where atheism once ruled. You have also witnessed the how the contours of the Orthodox Christian world and the Islamic world converge across a great swath of our planet.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate has the experience of over a thousand years in this ongoing religious, cultural, ethnic, and even linguistic engagement of Islam and Christianity. In the last two decades, our Ecumenical Patriarchate has sponsored twelve international dialogues with Islamic partners around the world – in both Christian and Islamic countries, and has participated in many, many more. In fact, at this very moment, our representatives are in Baku, Azerbaijan as part of an international symposium of Christians, Muslims and Jews. In this vein, the Ecumenical Patriarchate continuously sponsors and participates in multi-lateral dialogues among the three great Abrahamic faiths in order to foster the kind of understanding that leads to last tranquility.

That is why the re-opening of our Theological School of Halki continues to be a matter most pressing for our spiritual mission, and we deeply appreciate President Obama’s mentioning of this particular issue when he spoke before the Great National Assembly of the Turkish Republic. Indeed, you yourself have always stood firmly behind this most basic issue of human and religious liberty, but its importance goes well beyond the Ecumenical Patriarchate per se. The re-opening of and the active participation of the international academic community in Halki will create a much-needed opening for further dialogue and study. An institution of such historical importance on the cusp of the great faith traditions ands civilizations of the world will be a magnet of tremendous force for bringing many new opportunities for the interfaith and inter-religious work that must take place for the sake of our shared humanity.

Through the centuries we have learned that coexistence is only the beginning of the process of engagement. If we are to enjoy peace in place of war, prosperity instead of decline, freedom instead of oppression, we must move the dialogue beyond tolerance and even respect. We must recognize in the face of the “other” a kindred self, one who shares with us the deepest aspirations and needs of humankind.

Madame Secretary, it is this love for all God’s creation that has brought us back to the United States of America in these last few weeks. We wanted to lead our eighth environmental symposium, this time on the Mississippi River. But even more, we wanted to re-visit the community that was so devastated by Hurricane Katrina, to behold the faces of our sisters and brothers whose lives were so affected by that devastating storm.

We were heartened by the resiliency of the American people. We were touched by their hospitality and generosity. We see in America both a powerful nation and also a powerful capacity for love. As we prepare to leave tomorrow, we take this legacy of compassion and love with us, every praying that God will continue to bless you, your family, and all who work for peace and reconciliation in the world the abundant blessing of divine compassionate love. May God bless you richly, and may God bless America!

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