[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 150 (Monday, September 15, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E855]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





   WELCOMING HIS ALL-HOLINESS BARTHOLOMEW I, ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH OF 
                             CONSTANTINOPLE

                                  _____
                                 

                            HON. DINA TITUS

                               of nevada

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 15, 2025

  Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, as a Vice Co-Chair of the Hellenic Caucus and 
a proud Greek-American, I rise today to welcome His All-Holiness 
Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, to the United 
States, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian community around 
the world. His All-Holiness's visit to Washington, D.C. and New York is 
yet another demonstration of his commitment to peace, his see, and the 
millions of Orthodox Christians in the United States.
  Born Demetrios Arhondonis in 1940 on the island of Imvros (today, 
Gokceada, Turkey), His All-Holiness Bartholomew was elected in October 
1991 as the 270th Archbishop of the 2000-year-old Church founded by the 
Apostle Andrew. His formal office is Archbishop of Constantinople-New 
Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, a historic title dating to the sixth 
century. The Ecumenical Patriarch received his elementary and secondary 
education in Imvros and Istanbul. After completing undergraduate 
studies at the historic Theological School of Halki, he pursued 
graduate studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute of the Gregorian 
University in Rome (Italy), the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey 
(Switzerland), and the University of Munich (Germany). His doctoral 
dissertation, submitted to the University of Athens (Greece), was in 
the field of Canon Law, and he was a founding member of the Society of 
Canon Law of the Oriental Churches. Ordained to the Diaconate in 1961 
and to the Priesthood in 1969, he served as Assistant Dean at the 
Theological School of Halki (1968 to 1972) before his appointment as 
Personal Secretary to the late Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios (1972 to 
1990) as well as his election as Metropolitan of Philadelphia (1973) 
and, subsequently, Metropolitan of Chalcedon (1990).
  His see, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, once possessed holdings as vast 
as the Vatican but has been reduced to a small, besieged enclave in a 
decaying corner of Istanbul called the Phanar (Lighthouse). Almost all 
of its property has been seized by successive Turkish governments, its 
schools have been closed, and its prelates are taunted by extremists 
who demonstrate almost daily outside the Patriarchate, calling for its 
ouster from Turkey. The Patriarch himself is often jeered and 
threatened when he ventures outside his walled enclave. He is 
periodically burned in effigy by Turkish chauvinists. Petty bureaucrats 
take pleasure in harassing him, summoning him to their offices to 
question him about irrelevant issues, blocking his efforts to make 
repairs in the few buildings still under his control, and issuing 
veiled threats about what he says and does when he travels abroad. The 
Turkish government as a whole follows a policy that deliberately 
beIittles him, refusing to recognize his ecumenical status as the 
spiritual leader of a major religious faith.
  In September 1955, when Bartholomew was studying in Istanbul, he 
witnessed a massive pogrom against the city's Greek neighborhoods that 
left them looking ``like the bombed parts of London during the Second 
World War,'' as one British journalist reported. While the police 
``stood idly by or cheered on the mob,'' according to a report of the 
U.S. consul, 4,000 Greek shops and 2,000 homes were sacked and 
plundered, 38 churches were burned to the ground and 35 more 
desecrated, and 52 schools were destroyed. More than a dozen people 
were killed and scores were injured during the riots, beginning a cycle 
of violence and intimidation that has seen Istanbul's Greek population 
reduced from 200,000 when the riots erupted to less than 2,000 today.
  At a time when hostility and misunderstanding between the Christian 
and Muslim worlds have reached a deadly standoff, Patriarch 
Bartholomew, who speaks seven languages including Turkish, has made a 
deliberate effort to reach out to Muslims throughout the Middle East. 
``It is our strong belief that Orthodox Christians have a special 
responsibility to assist East-West rapprochement,'' he noted. ``For, 
like the Turkish Republic, we have a foot in both worlds.'' Pointing 
out that Orthodox Christians have a 550-year history of co-existence 
with Muslims in the Middle East, he has initiated a series of meetings 
with Muslim leaders throughout the region in what he calls ``a dialogue 
of loving truth.'' To strengthen that dialogue, he has traveled to 
Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Bahrain, and 
met political and religious figures in those countries, whom no other 
Christian hierarch has ever visited. As a result, the Patriarch has 
created more bridges between Christianity and Islam than any other 
prominent Christian leader.
  The Patriarch's concerns are not just limited to interfaith conflicts 
but have expanded to embrace all of God's creation. He has shown such 
concern for the environment that he has become widely known as ``the 
Green Patriarch.'' He famously declared shortly after he assumed the 
ecumenical throne in 1991 that ``crime against the natural world is a 
sin.'' Human beings and the environment, he stated, ``compose a 
seamless garment of existence, a multicolored cloth, which we believe 
to be woven in its entirety by God.'' The world, he told a 1997 
conference of environmentalists in Santa Barbara, California, ``is not 
ours to use for our own convenience. It is God's gift of love to us, 
and we must return his love by protecting it and all that is in it.''
  To back up his words with action, Bartholomew launched a series of 
initiatives to raise worldwide concern for the environment. In 1992 he 
proposed to all Orthodox churches that September 1st be celebrated as a 
special day of prayer for the environment. In 1995 he started a series 
of environmental conferences, inviting prominent scientists, political 
leaders, theologians, ecologists, and journalists to embark on weeklong 
trips to examine the destruction that pollution has caused on major 
waters. Designed to draw international attention to the ecological 
degradation of the areas they visit, five such floating conferences 
have taken place in the past decade to the Black Sea, the Aegean, the 
Adriatic, the Baltic and the Danube River. For his work to combat 
pollution, the Patriarch was chosen in 2002 to receive Norway's Sophie 
Prize, the most important international award given for leadership on 
the environment. He donated the $100,000 prize money to the poor 
children of Ethiopia, Greece, and Turkey. ``We are losing time,'' 
Bartholomew warned while accepting the award, ``and the more we wait, 
the more difficult and irreparable the damage.''
  Although his efforts have brought him little relief from his problems 
in Turkey, they have been recognized around the world, including by the 
U.S. Congress, which gave him its highest award, the Congressional Gold 
Medal, in a ceremony in the Capitol. ``The greatest lesson about 
America lies under this magnificent dome,'' he told the assembled 
legislators. ``The Pentagon embodies might, but the Capitol embodies 
right. In these halls, different points of view meet and are reconciled 
. . . And--most important to the Orthodox Church during many dark 
ages--in these halls human rights are preserved and human dignity is 
enhanced.''
  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is a leading figure in the dialogues 
of the Abrahamic Faiths--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and his 
presence in Washington, D.C. is an extraordinary opportunity to 
highlight the positive role that religious leaders of his stature bring 
to the myriad causes we in Congress grapple with each day.
  In addition to welcoming His All-Holiness to the United States and 
recognizing his lifetime of service and commitment to peace, I also ask 
that the House join me in congratulating Patriarch Bartholomew for 
receiving this year's Templeton Prize. Established in 1972, the 
Templeton Prize honors individuals whose exemplary achievements advance 
Sir John Templeton's philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the 
sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and 
humankind's place and purpose within it. At this year's ceremony, His 
All-Holiness will be honored for ``pioneering efforts to bridge 
scientific and spiritual understandings of humanity's relationship with 
the natural world [which] have brought together people of different 
faiths to heed a call for stewardship of creation.''
  It is my hope that His All-Holiness's trip is not only a resounding 
success, but brings with it a message for all of us as legislators to 
recommit ourselves to complementing his vital work of building bridges, 
protecting God's creation, and advancing the cause of peace around the 
world.

                          ____________________