US,Greece to Counter Russian Influence Together

On 29 September 2020,US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Crete with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.There Mr.Pompeo announced the US Navy Expeditionary Sea Base ship USS Hershel "Woody" Williams (ESB 4) will be homeported at NSA Souda Bay.The ship is a logistics/Command and Control ship that enables military operations by troops including Special Operations Forces.Secretary Pompeo said that Souda Bay is the perfect choice, given its strategic location.In his remarks,Mr.Pompeo stated that: Our security cooperation today is especially important as Russia continues to destabilize the region, especially in Libya, where the US calls for the withdrawal of all foreign military forces, and support for de-escalation and Libyan reconciliation. The Prime Minister and I also agreed to explore closer cooperation to overcome challenges that Russia poses through malign influence activities such as the spread of misinformation on the pandemic and trying to co-opt the Orthodox Church.* Meanwhile,in a TV interview, His Eminence Metropolitan Anthimos of Alexandroupolis, one of the New Lands of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Greece, observed that: There are political and geopolitical issues about which the Church has to make decisions, but they do not concern the Christians.Unfortunately,Christians,instead of praying and showing their love,tend to use such geopolitical,political,economic and diplomatic events in order to divide each other.* In particular, His Eminence referred to the Russian Orthodox Church: These tactics hurt us, the Greeks.The Russian Orthodox Church tried to "erase" the Ecumenical Patriarchate.In other words,it tried to overthrow the ecclesiastical order that has existed for 2,000 years and to take things in hand in relation to the universality of Orthodoxy.This is not an Orthodox Christian trait, and,therefore,we cannot be receiving political support and taking any geopolitical approach.If the sacred order that prevailed for so many years is overthrown, ultimately, all Orthodoxy will be overthrown, because all peoples will be demanding to take the lead.* Alexandroupolis Anthimos went on to comment on the recent formal request by President Stevo Pendarovski and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of North Macedonia to His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew that the uncanonical Macedonian Orthodox Church be granted autocephaly: It remains to be seen in which direction God will steer things.Anyway,they are Orthodox Christians too.We are sensitive, but the situation must be handled with courtesy and evangelical gentility, not with cruelty,war, hatred and evil.*