Day: January 8, 2023

The enthronement of Cyprus’ new archbishop, Georgios, takes place on Sunday afternoon, at the Apostolos Varnavas Cathedral in Nicosia, in the presence of President, Nicos Anastasiades, and House Speaker, Annita Demetriou, among others.

Greece’s Archbishop, Ieronymos II, will also be present, while it is expected that Greece’s Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Niki Kerameus, as well as Bishops from Greece, and representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, of other Christian Orthodox Churches but also of other dogmas will attend.

The new archbishop will walk from the Archbishopric to the Cathedral at 4pm, escorted by the members of the Holy Synod. During the ceremony the Archbishop will be clothed in the middle of the church with the red mantle and he will be given a second engolpion, which he will wear on his chest together with the cross. After the Act of the Enthronement Synod has been read by the Chief Secretary, he will then sign, in red ink, from the inkwell of Archbishop Kyprianos.

He will then stand on the first steps of the archiepiscopal throne where the first Bishop in command, Bishop of Kition, Nektarios, will offer him the imperial scepter, which dates back to 1869, and address him.

This will be followed by the addresses of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which will be read by the Archbishop of Thyateira, Nikitas, and of Ieronymos, the Archbishop of Athens. A letter from the Pope will be read, which will be read by the Nuncio in Cyprus and Bishop Christoforos of Karpasia will address on behalf of the Archbishopric. At the end, the enthronement speech of Archbishop Georgios will follow.

After the ceremony, the Archbishop will receive congratulations, while he will host a dinner in the evening for guests and representatives.

The Church of Cyprus is one of the oldest autocephalous churches.

In 478 AD the Archbishop of Cyprus Anthemios, following a vision, found the tomb and the remains of the Apostle Barnabas, on whose chest was a copy of the Gospel according to Matthew.

This Gospel was offered by Archbishop Anthemios to the Byzantine Emperor Zeno, who granted the well-known three imperial privileges to each Archbishop of Cyprus: To sign with cinnabar (red ink), to wear a purple mantle during the rites and to hold instead of the episcopal crosier, an imperial sceptre.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Enhancing bilateral relations between Germany and Cyprus, the Cyprus problem and Ukraine will be discussed by Foreign Affairs Minister Ioannis Kasoulides and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock during his working visit to Berlin on Monday.

Kasoulides is traveling to Berlin on Sunday, following an invitation by his counterpart, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

The meeting with Baerbock takes place on Monday.

The two Foreign Ministers will review the bilateral ties and ways to further enhance them in areas such as trade, tourism, education, defence and security.

The Cypriot FM will inform his counterpart on the next steps forward in the Cyprus issue and Turkey’s ongoing provocations. They will also talk about the situation in Ukraine, the food and energy crises and other issues of regional and EU interest.

Kasoulides will also meet with other German officials and will be interviewed by German mass media.

He returns to Cyprus on Tuesday.

Cyprus has been divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion. The latest round of peace talks under the UN aegis took place in the summer of 2017 in the Swiss resort of Crans Montana, but failed to yield any results.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

An “important project” has been launched to match curricula in higher and secondary education with current and future labour market data, Cyprus’ Minister of Education, Sport and Youth, Prodromos Prodromou said, during his visit at a careers event organised on Saturday by his ministry and the secondary education parents’ federation, in Nicosia.

In his address at the event, and in statements later to the media, Prodromou referred to an “important project”, which is included in the national, ‘Cyprus – Tomorrow’ recovery and resilience plan, to match study programmes in the tertiary, but also secondary education with today’s and future labour market data.

The Minister said that, research was launched, starting from the study of graduates’ path, but also, in collaboration with other agencies, in order to determine more precisely, what are the needs in society, in the labour market, not only today but also in the future, so that both higher education institutions and schools can better adapt their programmes and focus on subjects, “depending on how the world and the labour market evolve”.

Referring to the career day, Prodromou said that the primary goal of schools is to shape “complete personalities”, and young people who have all the necessary knowledge and skills, so that they can then cope in society and in a competitive world.

He noted that his Ministry has “the same concern and care” as parents to help young people choose their career path.

Shipping Deputy Minister, Vassilios Demetriades, who also addressed the event, said, that in the last 10 years the number of shipping companies based in Cyprus has tripled.

Recently, together with the Ministry of Education, he said, they have formulated some strategies and campaigns to give children the opportunity to get to know the shipping industry “and to love and appreciate the contribution of this industry to Cyprus and the huge prospects for employment, both on land as well as at sea.”

Demetriades also said that shipping has a multidimensional character, and expressed the belief that, in the coming years, young people, whatever they study, be it law, mathematics, economics, marine engineering, or if they choose merchant marine academies, “they can join the great shipping family of Cyprus with very high salaries, and have a successful career.”

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The Shipping Deputy Ministry of Cyprus is organising on January 19 a hybrid webinar to analyse the opportunities, risks and prospects for the development and use of alternative fuels in shipping sector.

According to a statement from the Deputy Ministry, the webinar will take the form of a live SWOT analysis where all experts from industry and academia will assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of fuels including hydrogen, ammonia, biofuel and methanol.

It is added that the three-hour webinar will be held on Thursday 19 January at 15:30 in collaboration with the University of Houston (US), and will be hosted by PwC’s Experience Centre in Nicosia, divided into sessions relating to each fuel (hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels and methanol). Each session will feature a presentation from the session’s key speaker, followed by interventions by the audience in formulating the SWOT Analysis and concluding remarks from a risk assessment analyst.

Deputy Minister of Shipping, Vassilis Demetriades, said that Cyprus is making a positive contribution to the global shipping scene with the launch of yet another innovative initiative.

“Our initiative to organise a live SWOT analysis together with the Division of Energy and Innovation of the University of Houston will be extremely useful for Regulators and Industry in identifying R&D priorities with the aim of ensuring the effective use of funds and more targeted research to accelerate the uptake of non-fossil fuels,” he noted.

“We look forward to hosting a diverse range of experts and believe that their insights, and the outcomes of scheduled discussions, will drive positive progress in shipping’s journey towards achieving its net-zero ambitions. We are building together a greener future for shipping ,” he added.

Those who wish to attend the hybrid meeting and/or contribute with their views to the SWOT analysis can register online at the following link: https://lnkd.in/ed9V_EBm

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has called on the new Archbishop of Cyprus Georgios to “protect the faith.”

In a message delivered at Archbishop Georgios’ enthronement ceremony, in Nicosia, by Archbishop Nikita of Thyatira and Great Britain, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew “welcomed” the enthronement of the new Primate of the Cyprus Orthodox Church.

Addressing the new Archbishop of Cyprus as “beloved and most precious brother and colleague,” the Ecumenical Patriarch noted in his message that he received “with deep emotion and righteous joy” the elevation of the new Archbishop of Cyprus. In his message, the Ecumenical Patriarch refers “with deep emotion” to the former Archbishop Chrysostomos, stressing that he “fell to earth to bear much fruit in the Kingdom of God”.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew addressing the new Archbishop, adds that “you are called to become a bearer of this Tradition, demonstrably, not only with words, but also with deeds and actions, as a healer of the ecclesiologically correct opinion of the Orthodox Church, to give yourselves to the Church, in the common struggle for the protection of the faith in the present time, as it is shaken, not so much because of different doctrinal beliefs, but because of the ‘new doctrine’ of the nation and the new ecclesiology of the heresy of ethnophilism.”

“Our struggle is persistent and serious, as those who have secular interests from such an alteration project our movements as allegedly unorthodox and deceive the faithful Christians in a completely defamatory and unfair manner,” he said.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Pope Francis has sent a message of Christian unity to the new Archbishop of Cyprus Georgios.

In his message during Archbishop Georgio’s enthronement ceremony, in Nicosia, which was delivered by Adolfo Tito, the apostolic Nuncio, the Pope referred to Archbishop Chrysostomos who, “remained steadfast in a particular way in his commitment to improving relations between churches.”

“I know that your beatitude will continue in this commitment to fostering the unity of all Christ’s disciples,” he noted.

“In these difficult times marked by injustice, violence and war it is all the more important that Christians give an authentic witness of unity so that the world may believe in the Lord’s message of love, reconciliation and peace,” he said.

It is my profound vow that with your own paternal guidance relations between the Church of Cyprus and the Catholic Church will also be able to develop further through the work of fruitful cooperation in serving the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters and so complimenting in an active and constructive way the work of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole, he said.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Archbishop Georgios of Nova Justiniana and All Cyprus officially assumed his new duties following the enthronement ceremony held on Sunday afternoon at the Cathedral of Apostle Barnabas in Nicosia.

As he said, among other things, in his enthronement speech, “for Cyprus and its Archbishop, the cross remains a cross of martyrdom, the chlamydia becomes a cloth with which it covers the wounds of the people, the crown of thorns becomes a visible sign of the burdensome slavery of our homeland, and the calamus the means by which the venom of bitter slavery is transmitted to our people”.

His Beatitude said that he is particularly concerned about the issues of education as an essential element of life and survival of a people. “We are not asking, nor are we attempting to blackmail the Government of the country on the issues of education, nor on other issues. We do not, however, deny ourselves the right to have an opinion on the most important issues of the country and to express it freely, as such a right is enjoyed today by all citizens,” he said.

Referring to the Cyprus issue, he said that today, when we are in danger as never before from “Turkish bulimia”, as he put it, which does not hide its aspirations for the conquest and Turkification of the whole of Cyprus, the Church cannot remain in the stands as a mere spectator.

“The government of the Republic can also count on our support in seeking to restore the rights of our people and in liberating our occupied territories,” he noted, adding that the Church would not hesitate, however, to point out any possible diversion and would “strive to prevent solutions that would endanger our survival in our ancestral land.”

He added that the Church will actively contribute, in consultation with the competent authorities of the state, to the defence of Cyprus, while he called for the activation of the defence doctrine of the single area between Greece and Cyprus, which, he said, will satisfy the sense of security of the people, prevent new expansionist moves by Turkey and maintain and consolidate the desire for liberation.

The Archbishop’s enthronement speech was preceded by addresses on behalf of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus and the Holy Archdiocese of Cyprus by Metropolitan Nektarios of Kition and Metropolitan Christophoros of Karpasia, respectively.

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece also addressed the new Archbishop, while messages on behalf of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis were read by Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain and Apostolic Nuncio Adolfo Tito, respectively.

The Enthronement Ceremony began shortly after 4 p.m., in the presence of the President of the Republic, Nicos Anastasiades, the Speaker of the Parliament, Annita Demetriou, the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Ieronymos, and the country’s political leadership.

Also present at the ceremony were the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs of Greece, Niki Kerameos, a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, representatives of all the Orthodox Churches, as well as representatives of other denominations.

After the end of the Enthronement Ceremony, the Archbishop went to the Great Synod, where he received congratulations.

This was followed by a dinner at a Nicosia hotel for the official guests and delegates.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

I believe that your ministry will be expedient and fruitful, Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece said to Archbishop of Cyprus Georgios addressing his enthronement ceremony, on Sunday, in Nicosia.

Particularly, he added, “in ecclesiastical matters which have to do with the identity and unity of the church and the destination and meaning of human existence.”

He referred in particular to the difficult times in which Archbishop Georgios assumes his duties and spoke of the instability and fluidity of modern civilisation and the unprecedented digital progress.

Archbishop Ieronymos further spoke of the fact that Archbishop Georgios will also have to deal with the consequences of the Turkish invasion of 1974 which “remain unhealed”.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

It is an important, historic moment for Cyprus, House of Representatives President Annita Demetriou said about the enthronement of new Archbishop of Cyprus Georgios.

Demetriou was replying to a journalist’s comment to that effect after the enthronement ceremony which took place at Apostle Barnabas cathedral in Nicosia, on Sunday.

Indeed, she noted, “it is a historic day, at least personally I do not recall the previous Archbishop’s enthronement ceremony.”

She expressed the wish that the Church will continue its virtuous work and its role which has been ongoing for centuries.

“It is an important, historic moment for our Cyprus and we wish for the best,” Demetriou said.

The state, the President of the Republic, the House of Representatives, all organised actors are here; as we should be, we are following together the same path in the best interest of our country, she pointed out.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The President of the Republic Nicos Anastasiades expressed his wishes for a “long, fruitful and creative ministry” to the newly enthroned Archbishop Georgios of Cyprus.

President Anastasiades, who attended the enthronement ceremony of the Archbishop on Sunday afternoon at the Apostle Barnabas cathedral, in Nicosia, was responding to a comment by a journalist after the ceremony that today is a historic day.

According to a statement issued by the Presidency, the President of the Republic responded in the affirmative to the journalist’s remark and wished the new Archbishop “a long, fruitful and creative ministry for the sake of the Church and our country.”

Source: Cyprus News Agency