‘From the Bosphoros to the Hudson,’ we are citizens of one earth, says Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

There, His All-Holiness celebrated a Doxology service at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, returning to the Ground Zero parish where he performed the Thyranoixia (Door-Opening) upon his last visit to the U.S. in 2021.

His All-Holiness reflected on the Shrine’s “neverending” mission, explaining that its vast array of churchgoers and visitors, all of whom take comfort within the Shrine’s walls, exemplify that “from the Bosphoros to the Hudson River,” we are all “citizens…of one inhabited earth that is home to us all.”

The original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was the only house of worship destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks, and its reconstruction now serves as both a functioning church and a national memorial–a beacon of faith and resilience in the heart of New York City.

Recounting the Ecumenical Patriarch’s 2021 wish that the “miracle-working hand” of Saint Nicholas grant the community “health, prosperity, and every spiritual lesson,” His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America shared that this prayer has indeed come to fruition.

“We have seen the shrine become an integral thematic element here, at Ground Zero, and become a place of pilgrimage for the many thousands that flock to this historic place for their own consolation,” His Eminence said. 

At the service’s conclusion, Proistamenos Fr. Andreas Vithoulkas welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarch to the parish, and presented a newly-prepared reliquary case which will permanently house the relics of St. Nicholas, and a set of hierarchical vestments, “offered in the same spirit as the Templeton Prize–a witness to the resurrection, to renewal, to the transfiguration of creation.”

Following the event at St. Nicholas, the Ecumenical Patriarch traveled to the United Nations Headquarters, where he met with Antonio Gutteres, Secretary General of the U.N. Also participating in this meeting were His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, His Eminence Metropolitan Theodoritos of Laodicea, His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos of Selyvria, the V. Rev. Grand Ecclesiarch Aetios, and Rev. Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Alex Karloutsos.

Photos by Alkis Tzortzoglou and information from The Orthodox Observer.  More: www.orthodoxobserver.org