Corfu Metropolitan Church: 1,300,000 Euros for charitable work in 2017
CORFU. A clerical-secular meeting was held on Thursday evening at the amphitheatre of the ‘Platytera’ Foundation for the Chronically Ill.
The New Year Cake was blessed before the presentation of the financial and management report for both the Holy Metropolis of Corfu and its Foundations and the Holy Metropolis Fund for the Poor by Rev. Father Themistocles Mourtzanos, General Churchwarden. Nektarios, Archbishop of Corfu, Paxos and the Diapontian Islands was not present as he was in Athens attending the Standing Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. The report stated that in 2017 about 1,300,000 Euros was given to charitable, social and missionary work, as a social contribution from the Church to the people of God.
After conveying the blessings and thanks of Archbishop Nektarios, Father Themistocles stated that charity is the imitation of Christ, and a response to the challenges of our times regarding the usefulness of the Church. Charity motivates the secular element and begins with Liturgical life; it embraces the whole human, not just the material part, otherwise charity would become activism. Charity means forgiveness, prayer, the ministry of speech, radio, publications, camps, catechism; in short every aspect of study and education.
Father Themistocles went on to point out that a plate of food is especially valuable in our times, through the daily packages offered to the Community Supermarkets of the local Church. The most important of all the above-mentioned is, of course, non-discriminating love towards everybody, forgetting oneself and the offering help to our neighbour.
In conclusion, Father Themistocles thanked the Clergy and the lay people for their great contribution to the work of the Metropolitan Church, which is the salvation and the ministry of the people.
