You see the same misuse of language here that you saw when Abp. Demetrios visited the White House but even one level higher: the vocabulary of the Orthodox tradition is employed rather than the vocabulary of history. Pat. Bartholomew’s words are nothing more than the attempt to influence through flattery, quite unseemly for a religious leader of his stature and certainly something you would never hear Pat. Kirill, Pope Benedict, or even Abp. Rowan utter to high placed political officials.

Again, this is another failure of Pat. Bartholomew’s advisers. It reads like it was scripted by an old time Washington lobbyist, including the hackneyed rhyme (“In addition to understanding what is power and might, you know as well what is holy and right”) which probably earned the writer a few atta-boys from his peers. They are tone deaf to the nuances of language in American culture, and you can bet Clinton saw right through it and read weakness.

Clinton does not know what is “holy and right.” If she did, she would not make abortion a centerpiece of US foreign policy. Presumably Pat. Bartholomew knows this…but you are left to wonder. If he does, then the words are servile flattery. If he doesn’t, then we are in trouble.

OTOH, maybe its because he has been under the Turks for so long that he does not know how people in a Democratic Republic think.

In addition to understanding what is power and might, you know as well what is holy and right. And your respect for the diversity of religious expression in the world makes you a champion of human rights and religious liberty