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His All Holiness Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I
Patriarchal Blessings
My beloved children in Christ,
Here from the Mother Church of Constantinople we send our love, our prayers and the Patriarchal Blessings to all our dearest Christians of New Zealand. You are a few and live really far away. However in the eyes of Jesus you are a lot and we feel you very close to us. Love abolishes the distances
We remember with emotion our brief visit to your beautiful country in 1996. Since them you are more in our prayers.
We hope that the spirited efforts of your most sacred Archbishop Amphilochios, will be crowned with heavenly blessings and the name of Christ will be glorified in the Antipodes as well.
Keep the Faith, keep the traditions, keep the language of our forefathers and be always a lighted candle of the Resurrection among the multinational, multireligious, and multicultural environment of Aotearoa.
With plenty of paternal love and prayers
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His Eminence Archbishop of New Zealand
and Exarch of Oceania Amfilochios
Archbishop's Blessings
My dearest,
The missionary Metropolis of the Greek Orthodox Church in New Zealand guides and supports all Christians of the Orthodox faith besides Greeks, such as Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians and Russians, wherever they are deprived of priests and churches of their own.
The missionary see to acquainting the New Zealanders and Maori natives with the Orthodox faith. Its concern in particular, is to reach out to the natives of the islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, where Orthodoxy is completely unknown and where there is an eagerness and thirst for the truth.
If only all human beings could learn that there is only one and sole Saviour and Redeemer of the world, Christ, and that «there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved» (Acts 4, 12).
With His love
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