On March 25, 2021, Greece celebrates the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the national liberation revolution against the four-century yoke of the Ottoman Empire.

The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus, congratulated President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and the people of Greece on the 200th anniversary of the country’s independence. The text of the congratulatory message is published on the website Patriarchia.ru.

“In the events of two centuries ago, the people of Greece, having gone through many sorrows and trials amid the lack of freedom and invariably strengthening themselves in the hardships of their paternal Orthodox faith, showed tremendous spiritual courage and heroism,” the message says. “The consecration of the blue and white Greek flag in 1821 in the monastery of St. Lavra became not only a sign of the beginning of the selfless national struggle for the rights and freedom of the Greek population, but also a symbol of national unity, which was based on ardent love for the native land. The invincibility of the national spirit, the will to win and a keen sense of responsibility for the fate of the homeland, which all Greeks experienced in those days, created a unified Greece from Thrace to Crete, from the Ionian to the Aegean Islands.”

Patriarch Kirill noted that the Russian people have always been concerned with the fate of Greek brothers and sisters in spirit and faith, and “lending a shoulder in difficult times, with arms in hand defending the right of the Greeks to a peaceful life in the land of their ancestors, the Russian people actively testified their love up to the willingness to lay down their lives for their friends (John 15:13).”

“Bound by a common faith and spiritual culture, close national traditions, the peoples of Russia and Greece have a common civilizational mission in the modern world. Our saints, our Orthodox ancestors taught us to value sacrifice above pragmatism, friendship above profit, truth above strength, freedom above well-being.

Today, despite the transient political turmoil, including from the outside, our peoples remain committed to the good traditions of hospitality and cordiality, mutual assistance and solidarity. I am convinced that the heirs of Holy Russia and Orthodox Greece have not only a common past, but also a common present and, of course, a common future,” added the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, wishing the entire Greek people peace and prosperity.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the clergy and believers of Greece tried to overturn the decision of the Episcopal Council of the GOC on the recognition of the OCU through the courts.