BOSTON. Metropolitan Methodios of Boston spoke exclusively to the National Herald about his recent meeting with Pope Francis of Rome.
Metropolitan Methodios was the head of the official delegation that represented the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Patronal Feast of the Church of Rome on the solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The other two members of the delegation were Archbishop Job of Telmessos and Patriarchal Deacon Nephon. Metropolitan Methodios was cordially greeted by Pope Francis, who hosted a banquet for him at the Vatican, as reported by TNH on Wednesday, June 29, 2016.
Addressing Metropolitan Methodios, Pope Francis stated: “We cordially welcome you to the celebration of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, patrons of the Church of Rome. I thank you for your presence and ask you to convey my deep gratitude to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy Synod for sending such a distinguished delegation to our Patronal Feast.”
Speaking to TNH and in response to the question on how he would describe his visit to the Vatican, he said: “For me it was a great honor to represent our Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, along with Archbishop Job of Telmessos and Tertiary Deacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Nephon.” He added that “it was not the first time I went to the Vatican, but it was the first time I went as a representative of the Patriarch, and it was a good experience for me and for which I am grateful to Patriarch.”
Asked how they were welcomed, he noted that “they welcomed all three of us with great warmth, with love, with kindness, and with humility I could say. I was received privately by the Pope and it was like talking to a spiritual father and I could say to a friend, it was not as a Pope to a Bishop, we are like two friends I can tell you.” He added that “he is truly a humble man, he expressed the love and respect that he has for his brother the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew several times, he spoke very highly of him, very warmly.”
When we asked him what they discussed, Metropolitan Methodios responded that “he will visit Poland at the end of July where around a half million young people will gather and we talked about the youth. I told him that he will have the opportunity to make them missionaries, for them to become evangelists and he replied that he agreed with me, that I was right and that this is what we should all do because we need to entrust our hopes in the future, in the children. We also discussed Lesvos which he visited with the Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop Ieronymos. That it was the second humanitarian disaster after World War II. I stressed that Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism should become one Church in order to talk about contemporary issues in modern society ‘with one mouth and one heart’, something with which the Pope agreed.”
Regarding whether they discussed the issue of the joint celebration of Easter, he replied “no, we did not touch upon such matters. In September the members of the Theological Dialogue will meet again and many topics will be discussed.” He added that “the Orthodox do not agree with a common celebration, the obstacle here is not the Catholics, but rather the Orthodox.”
When asked how he responds to some fundamentalists who do not want the Orthodox to even say hello to the Roman Catholics, he stated “I usually say that Orthodoxy can not continue in the future to be held captive by a small percentage of fundamentalists.”
When we asked him about his thoughts on the Great Council which was held a week ago in Crete, he responded that “just as the Pope himself said, it was a step forward for Orthodoxy. The Holy and Great Council was successful because it was attended by ten of the Churches,” and he noted: “It was wrong of Russia to attempt to undermine the entire effort and I hope that the Ecumenical Patriarch will fulfill his dream to convene the Council again within five or ten years to discuss the truly difficult issues that concern modern man.”
In response to the observation that Antioch announced that it does not recognize the Synod, that maybe we are indeed a dispersed Orthodoxy, he stated that “it seems to be so in the eyes of Patriarch John. When he became Patriarch, the Antiochians here changed their attitude at the Episcopal Assembly. Just as we were headed toward a study on how the Church will be after five-ten years, they objected.”
When asked whether he thinks that the absence of the Patriarchates of Antioch, Bulgaria, Georgia and Moscow from the Holy Council will create adverse reactions at the Episcopal Assemblies, and specifically here in America, he replied, “certainly, I expect we will have issues in October when we go to Detroit, that we will have a lot of problems, I do not know how Archbishop Demetrios will handle it. What are we going to talk about?”
These days Metropolitan Methodios is participating in the Clergy-Laity Congress in Nashville, Tennessee. When we asked him what he anticipates from the Clergy-Laity, he stated that “it is an opportunity for the Archbishop to encourage the people for an internal mission.” And he noted: “We have the need for an internal mission, to not only emphasize the external mission, but we must rediscover our world which for one reason or other lives outside the Church. Although they remain Orthodox, they do not live Orthodoxy.”