Today, more than a century later, nationalism remains the bane of our ecumenical church. It is time for us to begin to reconcile nationalism and ecumenism. They are not mutually exclusive.

That is why the Mother Church has done everything in her power to support, morally and materially, the re-emerging Orthodox Churches in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe, especially since the collapse of Godless communism. Although these churches are self-governing, they are the daughters of the See of St. Andrew the Apostle.

That is why we have spoken out in no uncertain terms against the proselytism by Roman Catholics and Protestants among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, and other nations of Eastern Europe - as if these lands had never been Christianized.

That is why we convened an unprecedented Pan-Orthodox Council of Synaxis of the heads of the world's Patriarchal and Autocephalous Orthodox Churches in March of 1992 - an unusual display of Christian solidarity, and a return of the ecumenism of centuries past.

That is why we also convened an Assembly of the Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in August 1992 - some eighty bishops came from throughout the world to the Phanar to discuss the current status of the Great Church.

And, finally, that is why the Ecumenical Throne, in co-operation with the other sister Orthodox churches, has been preparing energetically for the convening of the Great and Holy Synod of the entire Orthodox Church - the first such gathering of bishops since the last Ecumenical Council, which took place at Nicea in 787.