wfn.org | NCCCUSA Sends Condolences at Jerusalem Bishop's Death

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National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
E-mail: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org
12/24/2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCCCUSA SENDS CONDOLENCES AT BISHOP DIODOROS I’S DEATH

	December 22, 2000, NEW YORK CITY – The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar,
General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the
U.S.A., writing on behalf of the NCCCUSA’s 36 member communions, has
sent the following letter of condolence upon learning of the death of Bishop
Diodoros I.

December 22, 2000
His Eminence Metropolitan Timotheos
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Your Eminence:

We greet you in this season of Advent and we find our joy in the Incarnation
despite the worries and burdens of life.  In these days, we are saddened to
learn that His Beatitude Diodoros I has fallen asleep in the Lord.  We send
our sympathies and Christian love to the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate of Jerusalem, to the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher and to
the priests and the faithful of the church.  We are confident in
Christ’s sure promise that nothing in this life or in the life to come
can separate us from God’s love.

For the life of His Beatitude Diodoros I, we give thanks.  For all that was
kind and good and faithful we praise God's name.  He devoted his life to the
continuation of the witness of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in the Holy
City.  May God now grant this servant eternal repose in the presence of all
the faithful who have fallen asleep in the Lord.  We join in prayers for his
departed soul.  In this season, all Christian minds are drawn to the Holy
Land and we pray that God may guide and guard the church during these
troubled times.

In Christian love,
The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar
General Secretary