Your Eminence, beloved brother in Christ,
Archbishop Spyridon of America,
Your Grace, beloved brother in Christ, Bishop Isaiah of Denver,
Beloved children in the Lord,

St. Basil the Great expressed the very sentiment we are experiencing at this moment: “what can be more pleasing than to see people who are separated by vast stretches of land, united through love, into a single harmony of the members of the body of Christ?”
We come from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, imbued with a sense of Christian and Orthodox history, to strengthen the ties between Mother Church and our daughter Church in America.  We come to share almost two thousand years of history and experience with your Church, our Church, of seventy-five years in America.
We come to admire your accomplishments and to encourage you to multiply and increase in the Faith, both in quality and in quantity, with our Patriarchal blessings and love. We come to tell you of our profound pride of your achievements, as a parent takes pride in the attainments of his children. We come to manifest to you the love of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the See that bears a direct line of succession from St. Andrew, the First-called Apostle, from the Apostolic Synodia and from Christ Himself.
We come to tell you that we stand on the throne of our illustrious predecessors, Andrew the Apostle, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian and we, God’s humble servant, are the 270th hierarch to stand in this line of succession. You share in this historical privilege and honor, because you are under the spiritual and canonical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Great Church of Christ.
It is with overwhelming joy that we greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in this beautiful Cathedral dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The very architecture of this Byzantine edifice follows the pattern of Aghia Sophia, built by Justinian the Great more than fifteen hundred years ago.
It was in Byzantium, with its capital in Constantinople, that the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Christian Church were held. During the Byzantine Empire, the teachings of the Christian Faith were defined and refined, more than any other period in history. The Christian Church and the Western World, as we know it, have their roots in Byzantium.  It was in the Christian East, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the central doctrine of Christianity was defined.
Our predecessor, St. Gregory the Theologian, who served in the fourth century, is sometimes called the poet of the Holy Trinity.  He wrote that the Trinity is “the light whose brightness surpasses all that the mind can conceive; for from an exalted throne on high, the Trinity pours upon all, the ineffable radiance common to all Three. This is the source of all that is here below, separated by time from the things on high.”  He also stated that a true theologian is one who loves and prays.
This is exactly what we Orthodox Christians experience during the Divine Liturgy, when we sojourn in the Kingdom of God. The Eucharist established by Jesus Christ Himself and bequeathed to us through the Apostles, unites the universal Orthodox Church as the one Body of Christ on Earth.  When you are participating in the Eucharist in your parish, wherever it may be, we are in communion with you and praying for you, for we are one.
As the Holy Trinity is One and yet Three, united and yet diverse, in a similar way, we are one and the same, and yet different. The persons of the Holy Trinity share in perfect, unselfish love and harmony. So the Orthodox Church, composed of many independent Churches, is one and undivided, and the Ecumenical Patriarch presides over this body as an elder brother.
The dismissal hymn of your parish speaks of the all-wise fishermen, the apostles who drew the world into their nets, the fold of the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit.  Beloved daughters and sons in the Lord, the Holy Spirit continues to cast out His net, in order to draw people of all ages, races and ethnicity into the Orthodox Church. We have come to tell you, that in this widespread Diocese of Denver, you are commissioned as Orthodox Christians to perpetuate this same work of the Apostles, by drawing our own people and others into the net of the Church.
Be strong, be courageous, have no fear and have faith, for you are apostolic ambassadors in America of our ancient, yet dynamic Faith. Be encouraged that we at the Ecumenical Patriarchate will continue to bear witness and bear the banner of Christ, even in the face of difficulties.
Our City is no stranger to human conflict. Neither is your city a stranger to trauma, for it experienced the pain of President John F. Kennedy’s untimely demise.  He was a victim of the same violence, hatred, terrorism and fanaticism that plagues our world today. But we remain in the Phanar, the light of World Orthodoxy, because of our love for Christ, for the Church in God’s oikoumene and for you, our beloved children in America and in every province of the Ecumenical Throne.
On behalf of the Great Church of Christ of Constantinople, we bless you with the words of St. Paul which invoke the Holy Trinity: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  Amen.