US Ambassador Praises Ecumenical Patriarch, Church of Greece

On 12 November 2019,US Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt addressed the symposium "Religion in the Contemporary World: Challenges and Prospects for Dialogue and Peace" at the Armed Forces Club in Athens.The symposium was sponsered by Foreign Affairs The Hellenic Edition magazine; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; and the Holy Archdiocese of Athens.
Ambassador Pyatt noted that:
In the United States, there is deep respect for the Greek Orthodox Church, which played a key role in our civil rights movement and continues to promote our commonly held values of religious freedom and tolerance.
The United States has also long supported the Ecumenical Patriarch, valuing his firm commitment to interfaith dialogue and respecting his strong voice for the West.
In that spirit of understanding,I have greatly appreciated my visits with the Ecumenical Patriarch and was very pleased to accept His All-Holiness's invitation to visit Mt.Athos last year. I found the monastic community there to be a uniquely spiritual place where Greece's rich Orthodox tradition thrives in stunning monasteries and remote sketes,amid a virtually untouched natural landscape.
In America, we look forward greatly to His All-Holiness's planned visit to the United States in May of 2020, where the new Archbishop of America, our friend Elpidophoros, has been doing great work to deepen the already strong people-to-people ties between our countries.*
It is no surprise that malign actors like Russia, China, and Iran,who have different interests and values, engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom.*
We see the Church of Greece's support of the Ecumenical Patriarch's decision to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as an example of His All-Holiness's moral courage and leadership.*
Russia is using religion as part of its hybrid warfare strategy, as a tool to achieve political objectives and spread false narratives.By competing with the Ecumenical Patriarch, Russia is trying to use the Church as a wedge to foment instability and undermine democracy.And just as Moscow manipulates energy resources to extract political concessions and high prices, it's now cutting off tourism and sacred practices, like commemoration in prayers, from countries that are not toeing its political line.*
Orthodoxy preserved Hellenism through Ottoman occupation and has been key to keeping Greek society together during the economic crisis.*