Pastoral Encyclical for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Synod
Bishops of Nafpaktos Who Participated in Ecumenical Synods
2023
Bishops of Nafpaktos Who Participated in Ecumenical Synods
2023
Beloved children in the Lord,
Many times I have referred to my Metropolitan Predecessors, each of whom had their own special gifts, but they also have common gifts which are the High Priesthood, which is transmitted from generation to generation with the apostolic tradition, which is the Revelation of God to the Saints, and the apostolic succession, which is the uninterrupted series of ordinations.
Among the Bishops and Metropolitans of the Diocese and Metropolis of Nafpaktos there are also four Bishops who participated in Great and Ecumenical Synods. There is Bishop Martyrios of Nafpaktos, who participated in the Synod of Sardis, i.e. today's Sofia in Bulgaria, in the year 343 AD, which was a continuation of the First Ecumenical Synod and supported Athanasios the Great. Also, there is Bishop Kallikrates of Nafpaktos, who participated in the Third Ecumenical Synod, which met in Ephesus of Asia Minor, in the year 431 AD, and decided that the Most Holy Theotokos gave birth to the true God, therefore she should be called Theotokos and not Christotokos, as Nestorius claimed. There is also Bishop Irenaios of Nafpaktos who participated in the Fourth Ecumenical Synod in Chalcedon, which was convened in 451 AD, and decided that Christ has two natures, divine and human, which natures act in His one Person "unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably". Finally, there is Bishop Antonios of Nafpaktos, who participated in the Eighth Ecumenical Synod, which was convened in Constantinople in the year 889-90 and condemned the filioque of the Franks, who claimed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and decided that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father and is sent to the world through the Son.
