A crowd of believers watched the meeting with epitaphs from five temples of the historical center of Thessaloniki, in Aristotelous Square.
This special event was held for the first time, at the initiative of the metropolis of Thessaloniki and with the support and cooperation of the municipality of Thessaloniki and personally of the mayor, Stelios Angeloudis, and with the contribution of the Tourism Organization.
Shortly after 9:30 in the evening, the epitaph processions from the church of Tou Teo Sophia, Panagia Chalkeon, Agia Theodora, Agios Nikolaos of Tranos and from the metropolitan church of Agios Gregorios of Palamas arrived at the specially designed area in the square, led by the Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Philotheo
Then they chanted his tropes epitaph lament and prayer was performed.
Message against violence Metropolitan Philotheos chose to send, and he emphasized that the “blessed meeting” is taking place in a place that has not long been overrun by violence, meaning the attack on people of the LGBTI community.
As he said, the assembly, with the preeminent Christ in the tomb, comes to present to us the God who has absolutely nothing to do with violence and manifests himself to us all, not relying on the greatness of his divinity, but through the weakness of the cross and the grave.
Settlement and quiet
The metropolitan emphasized that this God spoke to us about peace and quiet and then referred to hymns that mention that Christ spread his hands on the cross and united God with man because we had been far from Him, but also the people between us.
He emphasized that Metropolitan Philotheos, that God through the cross and death, that is, through his apparent weakness, showed us his power
“So we too when we can stand in unity, in sincere and true relationship with our brothers through Christ, then we can truly hope that this apparent weakness of ours – we feel weak when we do not rely on worldly power, but we can to abandon ourselves to the will of God – it can lead us to the true life,” he added
“We have come tonight”, he continued, “to worship Christ and we are called to see this worship in a way that is pleasing to God, that is, to be able to realize that we are his children, and among ourselves brothers, so only as love can we we exist”.
Concluding his speech, the metropolitan wished the faithful the message of the life-giving tomb of Christ to flood their hearts and “that the love of our God always requires us to gather in living worship near him and with him, but also among ourselves. Because this is how life is realized, only in relation to God and the brothers”.
Source: APE – MEB