Message from Bartholomeos I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

The choice of topic for your Conference this year appears all the more felicitous, since the Transfiguration occupies a central position in the life of our Church and since its spiritual exploration can be decisive for understanding the truths of our faith and for the spiritual path of each believer towards God.

At the same time our Mediocrity wishes to focus on two dangers that lurk in any attempt to approach and touch the Transfigured Lord.

The first danger lies in our arrogant assurance and our bold desire to see the Transfigured Lord and the uncreated light that shone on Mount Thabor. The desire to embrace the mystery of the Transfiguration and to penetrate its depths as if it were an object of scientific understanding or intellectual knowledge. In this case it is not possible to encounter the Lord in the inaccessible light of His Divinity, since this gift cannot be granted to us without our participation in His suffering. St Paul could proclaim that “the sufferings we now endure bear no comparison with the splendour, as yet unrevealed, which is in store for us” (Rom. 8:18), because he devoted all his life “suffering for Christ”.