Archbishop of Athens on the passing away of Pope Francis: He had love and respect for the Church of Greece

His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, sent a message on the passing away of Pope Francis. Archbishop Ieronymos, referring to Pope Francis, emphasised that “he was a powerful personality, who spent himself to the prevalence of all that is good and of the values of the human being as God’s creation.”

He adds in his message that throughout his ministry as Bishop of Rome, every lowliest brother and sister, the poor, the migrant, the refugees, in particular, occupied a central place in it. He even makes special reference to the Pope’s decision to “his exemplary generosity of returning three fragments from the Parthenon marbles in view of their re-unification with this monument of paramount
significance to the entire mankind.”

Read the message of Archbishop Ieronymos

His Eminence
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re
Dean of the College of the Cardinals
Rome

Your Eminence,
Ιt is with great sorrow that we would like to express our most heartfelt condolences on the passing of His Holiness the late Pope Francis to You and to all the faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church. May we assure you of our partaking of the grief and mourning of the Christians around the world.

He was a powerful personality, who spent himself for the prevalence of all that is good and of the values of the human being as God’s creature. Throughout his ministry as Bishop of Rome, every lowliest brother, the poor, the migrant, the refugees, in particular, occupied a central place in it.

With great emotion we retain in our heart the experience of our interaction and of all that we lived side by side during the two visits of the late Pope to our country, which alone demonstrate the love and the respect he had both for the Church of Greece and for the Greeks and Greece more broadly.

Indeed, everyone in Greece will always remember him, not least for his exemplary generosity of returning three fragments from the Parthenon marbles in view of their re-unification with this monument of paramount significance to the entire mankind.

His contribution to the sincere dialogue between the Churches and his anxiety for the desideratum of the unity of all were the main axes of his pastoral activity throughout his papacy.

May his memory be eternal.

With our deepest sympathy,

ARCHBISHOP OF ATHENS AND ALL GREECE