Present, smiling, with the weight and lightness of the World in his eyes, Barthélemy crossed the threshold of the Radio Tower of ERT.
It was a typical visit, but one that carried with it high symbolism and special historicity.
With the phrase “welcome home”the president of ERT Yiannis Papadopoulos welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarch, who linked his visit to the completion of 35 years on the ecumenical throne and the 60th anniversary of the founding of Public Broadcasting.
The ERT choir sang the Patriarch’s Hymn of Fame and in studio c – identified with the actions of the ERT Orchestra – the Chartaets of Mikis Theodorakis.
The gifts they exchanged had a similar symbolism…
The president of ERT presented a 1930s radio to the Prefect of Orthodoxy, with the Ecumenical Patriarch recalling with emotion his childhood in Agioi Theodoroi, Imvros, an island of Aegean Sea belonging to Turkey, also known as Zeytinliöy, when he helped in his father’s café with such a radio permanently on. To listen to the news and to soothe the soul, the uprooting and the sickness with music. At that time, Cyprian was on the rise.
The Ecumenical Patriarch offered John Papadopoulos a decorative plate from a workshop in Nicaea, Bithynia, where he and the Pope had celebrated the 1,700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council.
A particularly charged moment when the Ecumenical Patriarch spoke into the microphone of the Voice of Greece, addressing a message of love and justice to the whole world.
“You are in the radio chamber of EP World Radio and we welcome you,” said Elena Karagianni, director of Voice of Greece, to hear the voice of the Ecumenical Patriarch: “Dear listeners, the Ecumenical Patriarch is speaking to you and has the honor and joy of conveying to all of you the affection and love of the great Christ’s your Church”.
The universality of Bartholomew’s presence within the hearth of public information, with values, ideals and the power of language meeting high technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, was sealed with the inauguration of ERT Cosmos, the international channel of Public Television.
A new journey of ERT across borders to the world.The signal of a self-sufficient international channel that comes to succeed ERT, which for thirty years has connected Greece with the homogeneity in every corner of the planet, as Pythagoras first named the universe!
For all these highlights, the Ecumenical Patriarch’s visit to ERT was historic…
Ecumenicity, truths and fabricated news…
As a mission to reposition human values in the dominance of markets, the dictates of economy and technology, with the eloquence and purity of a spiritual leader addressing the Ecumenical world.
Bartholomeo, in the face of the journalists of ERT, spoke for the media workers. Recognizing them as shapers of public opinion, he recalled that an exponent of this power has on his shoulders a great responsibility: to be fair and objective.
And all this in an age when social media and artificial intelligence can fabricate “truths.”The Ecumenical Patriarch “clothed” the mission of the journalist with its lost spirituality, against the noise of misinformation and the abuse of the Greek language.
The Ecumenical Patriarch’s visit to ERT was a few hours after his speech from the podium of CSR Hellas when he sent another ecumenical message that “the economy should save people and not enslave them.” After all, as he pointed out, “economy and ecology start from the same word, house.”
Bartholomei’s blessings to ERT workers were not the ritual of a priest. It was a blessing and a blessing for our world to regain its lost identity. For the Universe to once again reach out to its true dimensions and not to the microcosm of the internet and the dictates of toxicity, falsehood and populism.
