Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew sent a Christmas message addressed to all humanity, in which he expressed the wish that all people experience “the absolute respect of the value of an individual, a fellow human being, and the ending of all forms of violence.”

In his message, the Ecumenical Patriarch also referred to “the waves of violence and barbarity” that still plague several regions on the planet, especially in the Middle East, often in the name of religion.