With grandeur, Ouranoupolis celebrated its patron saint, Saint Constantine and his Holy Mother, Helen Augusta.
On the eve of the feast on Monday, May 20, the great Vesper was officiated by Metropolitan Theoklitos of Ierissos, Agion Oros and Ardamerion.
In his sermon the Metropolitan stressed that Constantine the Great, by transferring the capital city of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, by signing the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, by erecting the capital city of the Cities in Byzantium in 328 AD, and by convening the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 AD. in Nicaea, Bithynia, has decisively combined Christianity and Hellenism.
And the Metropolitan concluded: “Some speak of the separation of Church and State. They are unaware that Hellenism has its roots in the City of Constantine, and that he is the founder of the peaceful co-existence of Church and State.
Alas to those who will dare to forge the icon of the Virgin Mary, who has Constantine the Great, founder of Constantinople, sat at her left side, and Constantine Palaiologos, the legendary King whose blood soaked the fall of Constantinople, at her right; Hagia Sophia, the ruined palaces and our Ecumenical Patriarchate that has suffered overlook behind them. Can all these change? No, and thus, you cannot change or divide Hellenism and Orthodoxy, State and Church, either.”