Welcoming the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew

Floor Speech

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Mr. BACON. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Omaha, I would like to welcome their Spiritual Leader, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew, to the United States. He is visiting the United States next week to meet with the president and members of the House and Senate Leadership and to receive the revered Templeton Prize.

Known as the ``Green Patriarch,'' he is well known for his efforts to promote ecology and the protection of the environment. He has been at the forefront of religious freedom and bringing together others from many faiths to work towards better cooperation and understanding. Through dialogue and visitations, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has significantly advanced Orthodox relations with the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, and others through visitations and open dialogues.

In addition, His All Holiness has visited several Orthodox Nations that were part of communist Eastern Europe to strengthen his contacts and relations with various Orthodox national churches there.

The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has brought together Christians, Muslims, and Jews at international peace conferences and meetings to advance greater cooperation and mutual understanding. His efforts to promote mutual respect and religious tolerance included having theological conversations with Muslim and Jewish leaders.

His push for peace includes calling out both the Russian state and the Russian church for the invasion of Ukraine. In Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's opinion, he says, ``This is the theology that the sister Church of Russia began to teach, trying to justify an unjust, unholy, unprovoked, diabolical war against a sovereign and independent country--Ukraine.''

The Ecumenical Patriarch is a figure who has addressed the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress (in 1997 when he received the Congressional Gold Medal), and has met Heads of State in Great Britain, Canada, South America, Greece, Russia, Norway, Finland, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Ethiopia, Korea, and Cuba. As Ecumenical Patriarch (the only Christian Leader in the world who is considered equal to the Pope of Rome in honor), he has met with every Pontiff since John Paul II, including Leo XIV. He has also traveled to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Bahrain, and met with both political and religious figures in those Islamic countries, many of whom no other Christian hierarch of such stature has ever visited.

I welcome His All Holiness to the United States, and I congratulate him on his well-deserved honor.

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