His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America was once considered a model hierarch: mild-mannered, cosmopolitan, progressive, open-minded, the spiritual descendant of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. But then shadows began to appear, certain reservations and an inexplicable climate of distrust. On the occasion of his visit to Athens, I asked if we could meet to get some answers to my questions. 

Theophania is a major religious holidays on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, marked by children caroling and an outdoor sanctifying service where a priest tosses a Cross into the waters

Amb. Tsunis also spent the Christmas break in his ancestral village of Platanos, Aitoloakarnania prefecture, in western Greece.