Message of His Eminence Metropolitan Aetolia and Acarnania and Damascenes for Sunday November 1, 2026translated

"Fake loves and true love"

My beloved Fathers and Brothers,

My beloved children in the Lord,

There are words that we use so often that we risk forgetting their true meaning. One of them is the word "love". We meet it everywhere: in our personal relationships, in public discussions, in the messages we exchange, in our declarations and promises.

Today we all talk about love and we all recognize its value. And yet, we don't always mean the same thing. The passion of selfishness and the constant search for our individual interest have changed our criteria. Our good intentions are not enough. We ask for the presence of the other, we seek deep and sincere relationships, but we are not always willing to dethrone from the throne of our heart our inflated self. We are not ready to limit our demands, to listen to our fellow man, to accept as our brother the one who differs from us, the one who disagrees with us, the one who follows a different way of thinking and a different way of life.

Mostly, however, we are afraid. We are afraid to relate, lest we lose the...