A MAN WHOSE NAME IS ATHENAGORAS

Phanar

In Istanbul, when you leave the new quarters and cross the bridge in the very middle of the Golden Horn, where on the other side a gigantic highway cuts through the Byzantine and Turkish flesh of the old city, passing under the aqueduct of Valens, who so Roman, victoriously steps over it, you need to turn right and go out into the street that runs along the Golden Horn. Now it is an industrial area where timber is processed, which is brought by ships from the coastal forests of Asia Minor. Everywhere there were sawmills, the screech of metal biting into the trunks, trucks driving around in the dust or mud, hangars cluttered with boards. Here and there, from a small wasteland, you can see the narrowing bay, the dusty square along the pier, where the heavily loaded steamers serving the coast are always puffing. Your gaze reaches the old wall of Theodosius and the Street of the Tombs, the sacred land of Eyup, where the last companion of the Prophet died in a futile siege of the city. The barges have been dragged ashore, where among the old cans they are waiting for a new painting. In summer, when children bathe here among pot-bellied feluccas, the plane trees are already turning yellow. Opposite, on the other side of a quiet water stream, on a hill covered with yellow grass and white steles, is a Muslim cemetery. At its foot there are shipyards, the rattle of hammers on iron. On the shore, where

We are standing, the slope is rising just as quickly. Leaving behind the reddish ruins of the sea wall, now almost gone, we come to picturesque Turkish houses with wooden tiers. The whole panorama of life in the Mediterranean metropolis opens up before us. In summer, everyone waters the street in front of their doorstep, vineyards and wisteria stretch from façade to façade, melons and watermelons are piled up in front of the house. Further, the streets, unevenly laid out with stones, turn into rural roads. Fig trees, the ruins of an old mosque, stone flowers for women next to the tombs, columns swelling at the end of turbans for men. Trucks and American cars are almost hesitant to climb here, there are more animals than cars; there are beautiful horses with collars decorated with blue beads to protect the evil eye; seabirds and vultures circle over the garbage.

On the floor of the slope, suddenly and as if out of place, there rises a gigantic red-brick building, which would have passed for Oxford College, had it not been crowned with a dome and on the top of its walls there was no black Greek ornament of gigantic proportions. This is the main lyceum of the Greek patriarch – Rum Pathkanesi.

The patriarchate itself is located in a more secluded place. Not far from the Fener pier, there is a quiet street under the trees. From the side of the hill, a staircase leads to the gardens, located in tiers up to the Byzantine wall. We go out to a small square stretching between the church and the fountain covered with a huge tree. On the right are several modern buildings, very restrained in style. On the left is a very simple cathedral, built in the XVIII century, with an apse, here and there overgrown with grass, then alleys

pines, cypresses, roses. In the narthex there is a magnificent Byzantine mosaic depicting the Mother of God with the Child. His face seems serious and adult. The service ends. The worshippers leave the church; As usual in summer, there are many pilgrims and tourists among them. A tall old man in black appears, on his head is a black klobuk, which is worn by Orthodox monks. Anyone who wants to can follow him, tourists or vagrants, interspersed. Fifty people go with him to modern buildings. We pass through the gardens, along the alleys lined with white and black pebbles. We pass by jasmine, climb a high staircase. A person sits everyone in a spacious hall, and he settles down at the table. Large misted glasses of fresh water are brought, where a teaspoon of sugar mass is placed. There is no need to stir, he says, it is better to eat sugar first, and then drink water. Then he begins to speak and speaks for a long time in a hollow and firm voice. He speaks of the time in which we live as an era of human unity. "All peoples are good, all races. Everyone must find their place in human unity. I belong to all nations. The leaven of the unity of the human race must be the unity of Christians. The unification of humanity is an expression and at the same time a search for the full unity we have achieved in Christ, in whom we are all members of one another. I belong to all the Churches, or rather to one Church, the Church of Christ. The only theology is the proclamation of the Risen Christ, Who resurrects us and gives us the strength to love. People will soon reach the moon, but the meaning of life is unknown to them. We have nothing to ask for, nothing to impose, but we must bear witness to the fact that life has meaning, that it is immeasurable, that it opens up to eternity. Therefore God is, God exists, and He, the Unknown,

"Our friend."

You have already recognized this old man: he is Patriarch Athenagoras I, Archbishop of Constantinople, the first in honor in the Orthodox Church.

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