Archimandrite Gervasios visited the Serbian Patriarchate

His Holiness Irinej, Serbian Patriarch, received Archimandrite Gervasios Pantopoulos and his associates from the Diakonia for aid to the poor and the imprisoned on 25 November 2016.

This great friend of the Serbian people, who had been some time earlier awarded with the order of Saint Sava of the Second Degree, visited for the first time the imprisoned in Serbia and brought a donation and gifts for the poorest prisoners in the District Prison in Belgrade.

His Holiness talked with his guests about the importance of the Church mission in prisons and shared a belief that a force of change which dwells in the sacramental action of the Church, gives possibilities to the people that do not exist at any other place. Therefore, the pastoral care of the Church about people who have violated the law is important, because it can ooffer them a possibility to turn their mind and to repent, His Holiness stressed.

The guests from Greece participated in the Liturgy which His Holiness celebrated in the monastery of the The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple on 26 November 2016.