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Distinguished Guests,

It is with particular joy that we find ourselves among you today, gathered in this great city of London under the gracious hospitality of our beloved brother, His Eminence Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain. Our joy is doubled, for this luncheon coincides with his own name day, the feast of Saint Nikitas the Great Martyr, whose steadfast confession of faith among the Goths in the fourth century continues, sixteen centuries later, to instruct and inspire the Church. To him we say, from the heart, Χρόνια Πολλά — and we thank him warmly for bringing together, around a single table, so distinguished and so varied a company of hierarchs, religious leaders, diplomats, Archons of the Ecumenical Throne and other esteemed friends.

We look around this room and we see, in miniature, an icon of London itself — a city that for centuries has gathered within its embrace every nation, every tongue, and every faith under heaven, and that today remains a meeting-place of the Commonwealth of Nations and of the world. Rarely does one encounter beneath a single roof such a fullness of witness: brother hierarchs of other Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, together with hierarchs of the venerable Oriental Orthodox and other ancient Christian traditions of the East; His Eminence Cardinal Nichols and the Archbishop of Canterbury representing respectively the Church of Rome and the Church of England; the Chief Rabbi and distinguished representatives of the Jewish community; the Sunni and Shi’a Imams,; and, alongside them, ambassadors, parliamentarians, and esteemed men and women from across Great Britain. This is not merely a luncheon. It is a microcosm of our society!

The Ecumenical Patriarchate has, across many generations, understood itself as a servant: a servant of unity among the Eastern Orthodox, and a servant of dialogue with our fellow Christians and with the great monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam. It was our Patriarchate that, over a century ago, in 1920, addressed an Encyclical letter “Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere,” calling all Christians into closer fellowship, a call that strongly helped give birth to the modern ecumenical movement. And it is the same conviction — that dialogue is not a betrayal of one’s own faith but its most authentic expression — that has led us for decades into sustained academic conversation with the two other Monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam. The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, convened in Crete in 2016 – whose tenth anniversary we celebrate this year – affirmed that “honest interfaith dialogue contributes to the development of mutual trust and to the promotion of peace and reconciliation.” We repeat these words gladly today, among you.

This Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, established by the Ecumenical Patriarchate more than a century ago, has grown up alongside the Church of England in a relationship of uncommon warmth, nurtured across generations of Archbishops of Canterbury and the Throne of Constantinople. We would like to express the eternal gratitude of our Church to the venerable See of Canterbury for its crucial contribution and mediation during the negotiations that led to the Lausanne Treaty (1923), in support of the rightful claim of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to unshakably continue its ministry from its ancient See in Constantinople. We treasure equally our deepening friendship with our sister Church of Rome and we continue to seek together the restoration of full communion, mindful always that unity is the will of Christ for His Church, and not merely a human project.

We take particular joy, too, in the presence at this table of hierarchs of the Oriental Orthodox and other ancient Christian traditions of the East. Centuries of separation among us, born of controversies our own generation did not create, need not define our future. Every meeting such as this is itself a small act of healing — a foretaste of the unity for which Christ prayed, “that they all may be one.”

We cannot, of course, close our eyes to the world beyond these walls. Wars continue to displace millions; entire communities of believers, Christian and non-Christian alike, endure persecution, exile, and fear simply for the faith they profess; hatred, intolerance, and indifference to the suffering of others too often masquerade as power. Precisely because these wounds are real, gatherings of fellowship such as ours today are not a luxury but a necessity — a quiet yet determined witness that another way, the way of encounter and mutual respect, remains desirable and possible, and that it is worth defending.

Beloved brother Archbishop Nikitas, we thank you once again for your gracious hospitality on this your name day, and we thank each of you — Eminences, Excellencies, Gracies, Reverend Fathers, Chief Rabbi, Sheikhs, and honored friends — for gracing this table with your presence. May Saint Nikitas, whose memory we celebrate, intercede for us all. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom we, in our different ways, seek to know, serve, and glorify, grant to this great city of London, to the United Kingdom, and to our suffering world, “the peace from above.”

Thank you for your kind attention.