Encyclical of the Holy and Great Council of 26 June 2016

Abstract

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
we offer a hymn of thanksgiving to the God worshipped in the Trinity, who has granted us to gather during these days of Pentecost on the island of Crete, sanctified by the Apostle Paul of the Nations and his disciple Titus, “my true child in our common faith” (Titus 1:4), and to bring to completion, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy and Great Council of our Orthodox Church – convened by His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, with the agreement of Their Beatitudes, the Primates of the most holy autocephalous Orthodox Churches – to the glory of His blessed Name and for the benefit of the people of God and of the whole world, confessing with the divine Paul: “Thus let us be regarded as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1).