December 19, 2002
The Honourable PD Dr. Mario F. Broggi, Director of the Binding Foundation,
our Modesty’s beloved in the Lord: Grace and peace from God.
We would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to you for all that you have done for us through our being awarded the Binding Prize this December. Our receiving this award, its widespread acknowledgement, and our attendance to the Award Ceremony, would not have been possible without your very kind consideration and personal assistance. Your very meticulous organizing of all of the preliminary and subsequent details of our receiving the award was of great benefit to our Modesty and our patriarchal entourage, and was very much appreciated.
We are very grateful to the Binding Foundation for selecting us as an ecclesiastical personality and institution for this award. It is through this type of acknowledgement that the work of our Modesty, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and thus the Orthodox Church, in the protection of the natural environment grows and becomes more effective. We also hope that your gesture has awakened others in the field of environmental protection to the contribution that the Christian Church is making toward this cause.
Thanking you once again for all that you did to make this a very memorable event in the history of our environmental endeavours, we pray for your continued health, and spiritual well being, and for every good progress and success of the Binding Foundation towards its very noble goals. We would also like to express to you our warm regards in this joyful Christmas season and our heartfelt wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year 2003.
At the Patriarchate, 19 December 2002.
Your fervent supplicant before God,
+ BARTHOLOMEW
Archbishop of Constantinople,
