On the morning of June 25, 2025, the meeting of His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, His Beatitude Theodore II, with His Beatitude Archbishop of New Ioustinia and All Cyprus, His Beatitude George, took place at the Archbishopric of Nicosia. The meeting was held in a climate of brotherly love and unity and focused on developments in the wider region of the Middle East, which is experiencing bloody conflicts, to the worrying conditions regarding the safe living of Christian communities in it, following the horrific bomb attack by an extremist on the Greek Orthodox Holy Church of the Prophet Elias in Doueilaa in Damascus, last Sunday, June 22nd, 2025, as well as to the arduous carrying out of missionary work, the contemporary challenges, but also the obstacles that arise in it on the African continent, which in its entirety constitutes exclusively the Canonical territory of the Patriarchate.
The two Primates jointly condemned the aforementioned attack of blind hatred and religious fanaticism, which caused the martyrdom of twenty-five Orthodox brothers and sisters the injury of dozens of others during the Sunday Eucharistic Gathering, expressed their support for the Patriarchal Throne of Antioch, His Beatitude Patriarch John X and his Christian entourage, and reiterated their devotion to the principles of Christian unity, love, reconciliation and peaceful coexistence of the peoples of the long-suffering Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean without discrimination, and to their productive cooperation and progress through works of peace.
Subsequently, His Beatitude went to the tomb of the late blessed Archbishop of Cyprus, His Beatitude Chrysostomos II, where he offered a memorial prayer for the repose of his blessed soul, as a sign of eternal gratitude to the ever-remembered Primate of the Most Holy Church of Cyprus, who wholeheartedly supported the Apostolic work in Africa, openly defending the rights of the Second Throne Patriarchate as a genuine co-ruler, as an authentic brother and true friend of the Throne and of its Venerable Primate.
On the same day, His Beatitude visited the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Nicosia, where he had a cordial meeting with His Excellency Ambassador Mr. Mohamed Zaazou. In the context of th visit, His Beatitude expressed His joy, being in the premises of the “diplomatic mission of “our blessed country, Egypt, which honored us with the status of its citizen, in the struggle for the rights of Heroic Cyprus. “Our God-fearing homeland, the Land of the Nile, has never closed its heart and borders to anyone, on the contrary, offering the possibility of a safe life to every stranded fellow human being, to every suffering immigrant, with our Lord Jesus Christ at the forefront, Who in the maternal embrace of His Blessed Mother took refuge in the spiritually and materially fertile land of the King of the Nile,” he characteristically stated.
It is noted that His Beatitude was accompanied during His meetings by His Eminence It is noted that His Beatitude was accompanied during His meetings by His Eminence Nikodimos, Bishop of Nitria, and Exarch of the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Cyprus, as well as the Very Reverend Archimandrite Fr. Athinodoros Papaevripiadis
