In the last 24 hours, the headline’s speech has gone viral Ace Bishop of Colombia-Venezuela Timotheus in the Holy Church of the Ascension of the New World of Athens which comes to remind us what Greece means, what is the heritage of the Greeks and how important Orthodoxy plays in preserving our people and our traditions.

“I wanted to become Orthodox since I was an 8-year-old child. I happened to see Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus, who as president had started Colombia, and from then my own path began. Because I asked a western priest, I say to him: “Who is he who is showing on TV now, who visited Colombia a few years ago?” And the priest answered me: “He is a heretical bishop.” But also an Englishman said to me: “He is not a heretic. He is Orthodox. And Orthodoxy is the manna church”, said the universalist Luis Antonio Torres Esquirrell who was born in Colombia and hails from Chiracocco Indian tribe.

“And today I want to beg you, where are you children of the Greeks, where they never lowered the flag, where they never insulted their culture, who did not deny their own country, while they were being hunted in Smyrna, in Pontus, in Polis. and they left and came here and started new villages from scratch. And what did this grandmother and this grandfather bring? An image he brought in his hands. How many images saved please? Do not insult Hellenism. Don’t insult Greece. Please do not put water in the wine. We are welcome. Greece is the center of faith. Jerusalem is a holy city, but when we want to learn Christianity, Orthodoxy and faith, we come to Greece. We are coming here. This Indian with the slit eyes… I’m not going to Romania, I’m not going to Russia, I’m coming here, because here with a grandmother named Calliope in Aegaleo I learned to make my cross. Here with a grandfather I learned to say I believe and to say the “Our Father”. And when we say “the sanctuaries were taken from the bones of the Greeks” we say it with the heart so that tomorrow we foreigners, we Indians, because I am an Indian, will not need to come with a lighted lantern, like Diogenes, to look for a Greek among the Greeks“, said the Colombian bishop, among others.

On November 8, 2020, the titular Bishop of Assos, Assistant Bishop of the Metropolis of Mexico, was ordained in the Holy Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in Bogota. The ordination was performed by Metropolitan Athenagoras of Mexico, supported by the Archbishop of Dallas and South America? Alexander (Metropolia) and the Bishop of Myrin Athenagoras. He speaks Greek fluently as he studied at Kilkis Ecclesiastical High School and studied at the Theological School of AUTH. This choice came after many years of searching in his homeland and after he had seen it on his television Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.

The Bishop of Assou, a few days earlier, had also spoken to Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission during the event for the new year. He referred to the development of the Orthodox Church in Latin America and in efforts to spread Orthodoxy.