Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Arrives in Athens - revised

At noon on 19 May 2023,His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew arrived in Athens,Greece on a Vista Jet private flight.His formal visit began with a meeting at the Archdiocese of Athens with His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece.The accession document for the Church of St.Nicholas in the Workhouse was signed at that time.The church is located next to the British Embassy in Athens.It is an old Byzantine-style church.It had belonged to the Merciful Society of Athens-Nursing Home-Workhouse.Instrumental in the transfer to the Ecumenical Patriarchate were Mayor of Athens Konstantinos Bakoyannis and Archbishop Ieronymos II.The newly transferred temple is now a metochion church,or ecclesiastical embassy,on the territory of another autocephalous church,the Church of Greece.Athens already had metochia for the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa;the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and All Palestine;and St.Katherine's Monastery of Mt.Sinai,Egypt.There is already a Representative Office of the Ecuumenical Patriarchate in Athens,which is directed by His Eminence Metropolitan Theodoritos of Laodicea.* On Saturday at noon,Patriarch Bartholomew will receive a new award from the Municipality of Athens,the Evkleis Athinaios,or Illustrious Athenian,which is an acknowledgement of a person's achievement in high ethical standards and Greek culture.This ceremony will take place at the Olympia Music Theatre Maria Callas.On Sunday morning,His All-Holiness will preside at the Divine Liturgy for the feast of Sts.Constantine and Helen at St.Nicholas in the Workhouse.Afterwards,he will depart for the Phanar,or Lantern,the Patriarchal compound in Istanbul,Turkey.* Patriarch Bartholomew's entourage includes Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon;Metropolitan Theodoritos;Metropolitan Kyrillos of Ieropytna and Sitia;Grand Ecclesiarch Aetios,director of the Private Patriarchal Office;Nikolaos-Georgios Papachristou,director of the Press and Communication Office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate;and Theomistocles Karonikolas,Patriarchal Officer.* A workhouse was basically a residence for the poor (poorhouse) during the Victorian era.In England it had an abusive prison atmosphere with child labor,of which the writer Charles Dickens was critical.