The first ever visit to Ireland by an Ecumenical Patriarch, Archbishop of Constantinople and spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians was celebrated in a well-attended liturgical welcome at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral last night.
His All Holiness, Bartholomew I, met President McAleese and the Taoiseach Mr Ahern yesterday.
He has been in Ireland to attend the World Faith Development Dialogue meeting at Dublin Castle. On Monday evening he attended vespers at the Orthodox Church in Dublin's Arbour Hill where large numbers welcomed him emotionally.
Greeting him in the Pro-Cathedral last night the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, expressed the wish that the gathering, made up of Christians of many denominations and members of the diplomatic corps, "be a sign of what unites us and a sign of our appreciation of the presence among us of so many of our Orthodox brothers and sisters who make up such an important part of our ecumenical community" in Ireland.
In a homily the Ecumenical Patriarch expressed his thanks for the welcome. He said that "many of our fellow beings appropriate the will of God and act as if He were seeking the destruction of their enemies and the salvation of their nation solely and of those only that believe in their own religion. Regrettably they form an idea of God that conforms to their aims and that serves their egocentric or nationalist racist views in their failure to appreciate the words of God declaring that He wishes all people be saved and arrive to the knowledge of the truth."
Among the large number of clergy of many denominations present were Cardinal Desmond Connell, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, the papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Lazarotto, Bishop Martin Drennan, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, and the Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Dublin, Ven David Pierpoint.