Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch evolved a close relationship between friendship and mutual understanding. An evaluation of Ariana Ferentinou. Confirm from Istanbul

For over 1.3 billion of his faithful all over the world, yesterday’s day was a day of mourning for the loss of a religious leader characterized by humility, simplicity and humanity. His physicist happened on the day after the Easter holiday, which was celebrated together by the Orthodox and Catholics this year, in a year that Pope Francis had expressed a desire to be in Turkey to celebrate with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Bartholomew on the 1400th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council, which took place in Nice, Bithynia in 325 AD.

The presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch at Pope Francis’ enthronement ceremony on March 19, 2013 in Rome, had a particular symbolism, as Patriarch Bartholomew was the first Patriarch of Constantinople to attend the enthronement of the Pope 105. Good -hearted and sophisticated hierarch, who often smiled and greeting everyone, had impressed us. Every visit to the Fanari attracted a large number of journalists, Turks and foreign, who covered his every move.

Close friendship and mutual understanding

Those of us who knew the Ecumenical Patriarch had seen early in the face of Pope Francis the beginning of a very close relationship between friendship and a mutual understanding of serious common religious goals, the focus of which was the complete society between Orthodox and Roman. This close relationship appeared in their joint actions. In 2014 Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch visited the Temple of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, prayed to the Holy Sepulcher and signed a joint declaration for the complete society of Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. In November of the same year, Pope Francis was the first head of state to be admitted to Ankara by the then -elected President Erdogan! The next day, however, we saw him reach Fanari with his sequence, to watch the co -worker at the Patriarchal Church of St. George – on the day of St. Andrew, the patron of the Church of Constantinople. It was an important day for the relationships of the two churches. We all saw the two shepherds in the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s balconies being applauded by a multitude of believers.

A historical visit to Moria

In 2016, in the whirlwind of immigration, Pope Francis, along with the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Archbishop of Athens Hieronymus, are in Moria, Lesvos, where hundreds of immigrants, unaccompanied children, women with babies, are blessed. His great excitement from his visit to Moria was described by the Ecumenical Patriarch on his return to the Fanari: “I had nothing to say about these ladies who didn’t know what would happen,” he told us.

Five years later, Pope Francis will return to Lesvos, without the Ecumenical Patriarch, with the invitation of then -President Katerina Saklaropoulou. With the honesty and sincerity that characterized him, he criticized the indifference of European countries, the exploitation of refugees and the fact that “after five years have changed little”.

The relationship of the Catholic Shepherd with the Ecumenical Patriarch was close. Pope Francis invited Patriarch Bartholomew and had him on his side in all the Interfaith initiatives, calling him “dear brother”. Last May, despite his weak health, Pope Francis expressed a strong desire to visit the Lantern in 2025. Since January, preparations for the visit and celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council began.

His deep desire, like the Ecumenical Patriarch, was to return to the two churches soon to a permanent, common Easter celebration. In yesterday’s moving message by Patriarch Bartholomew about Pope Francis’ Evision, we read about the “Fateful Appeal of his Sleeping in the atmosphere of Easter Joy” and for a “brotherly friendship and cooperation for the good of the two churches”. The Ecumenical Patriarch talks about a loyal friend, companion and supporter, a genuine friend of Orthodoxy, but also a personal friend “we will always remember him”, concludes with a strong sense of personal loss.