10/14/2026
From Orthros to the final blessing, it was a Divine Liturgy that I could never have imagined.
As a child, I would play church at home with my brother and cousins. I was always the priest, draped in a blanket as my rasso (cassock) and serving Divine Liturgy.
A lifetime later, with the blessing of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, I was given the extraordinary honor of presiding over the Divine Liturgy from the throne of the Patriarchal Church of Saint George in Constantinople (known today as Istanbul). As the services unfolded, I could not help but remember those childhood liturgies and stand in awe of how God had been leading my heart toward this day, even then.
I carried in my heart all the Saints who once sat on this Throne, from Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom to the martyr Gregory V, and my namesake, Patriarch Athenagoras, who served as Archbishop of America and then as Ecumenical Patriarch.
I was moved to tears when I thought of my grandmothers, who came from East Thrace (modern-day Turkey), and the stories they told me of the Patriarchs in difficult times, beautiful and painful alike. Through them I learned that we, the Ρωμιοί (Romioi), the Orthodox Greeks of New Rome, are centered in the Phanar, the district of Constantinople where the Ecumenical Patriarchate has stood, and where the faith and our Hellenism were preserved through the long Ottoman centuries.
Through it all, I felt my unworthiness, God’s mercy, and His boundless love.
I thank God and His All-Holiness for this day of grace.
📸 Ecumenical Patriarchate
#ευχαριστίες
