Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Meet With Lithuanian Prime Minister

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is headed to Vilnius,Lithuania this week.On Tuesday,21 March 2023 he is to meet with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte,the Government Chancellery told BNS News,according to church news website vema.com.au.This is in the context of the His All-Holiness' reinstatement of five clerics who had been deposed by Metropolitan Innokenty of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church,a branch of the Moscow Patriarchate,only because they are rightly opposed to Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine.The clerics had appealed to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for reinstatement last summer.* The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate deliberated on the request and unanimously approved it based on the Divine and Sacred Canons 9 and 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council.* Earlier,the Deputy Foreign Minister of Lithuania had been received by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 19 September 2022,and His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon followed up by meeting with Prime Minister Simonyte in December 2022.The reinstated clerics are hopeful that the Ecumenical Patriarchate will establish a local branch of the Patriarchate for Lithuania similar to the one it created for Estonia years ago.