Acceptance speech for the award of doctor of philosophy (Honoris Causa) by the University of Malta

Abstract

We are grateful to the University of Malta for extending to us the exceptional honour of conferring to us the title of Honorary Doctor. This distinction belongs, through our person, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Holy Great Church of Christ, which “leads through suffering” and for seventeen centuries serves the people of God, unwaveringly preserving to this day as well the Apostolic and Patristic traditions, along with the faith, ethos and culture of Orthodox Christianity. What follows expresses the spirit and life of our Church, its concern and care for humankind and creation. It is this Church that we have served – with the goodwill and grace of God, the giver of all good things – for more than six decades as a clergyman, thirty-one of which as Ecumenical Patriarch.