In recent years, ecumenist policy is also being implemented through the exchange of official visits between Confessions, which are realized mostly by top-ranking clergy.  These visits include addresses of praise, embracing, exchange of gifts, common meals, common prayer, common announcements and other courteous gestures.

            Specifically, from 1969 onwards, an annual, mutual participation has been sanctioned for Orthodox and Roman Catholics, for enthronement celebrations of Rome and Constantinople.

            Unfortunately, these meetings are not simple, visits of etiquette. Besides, the ecumenists themselves confess that with these common celebrations, a kind of ecclesiastic communion is being experienced, thanks to their mutual acknowledgement.

            However, our faithful nation, when observing these visits on the audio-visual media, is faced with an unpleasant surprise; they are scandalized, embittered, they wonder and they are concerned, especially when they listen to their pastors speaking in a most orthodox and patristic manner the one day, and the next, they see them behaving diplomatically in the presence of the heterodox.  But, we wonder, won’t a compromise such as this, in the matter of the Church’s Truth, regardless whether it is for the most sacred expedience, result in a costly and painful price?