Yanukovych meets with Ecumenical Patriarch on Mount Athos, says source

08.10.2011

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych during his state visit to Greece made a private visit to Mount Athos, where he met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, a source in diplomatic circles told Interfax-Ukraine.

The source said that the Ukrainian president visited Mount Athos on Friday, October 7, after attending a business forum in Thessaloniki. He met with the patriarch in Karyes – the administrative center of Mount Athos.

The details of this meeting have not been specified.

According to the source, Yanukovych is still in Greece and it is unclear whether he will return to Ukraine in time for the opening ceremony of the renovated Olympiysky Stadium in Kyiv. The president is scheduled to deliver a welcome speech at the opening ceremony of the stadium, which will start at 2000 on Saturday.

Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece, which is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

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