Mike Pompeo to Receive the 2025 Athenagoras Human Rights Award

NEW YORK: . – The Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate have announced that the 2025 Athenagoras Human Rights Award will be presented to former U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo.

The Award will be presented on Saturday, October 18, 2025 at the AEP’s annual Athenagoras Human Rights Award black-tie banquet at the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York City.

Dr Anthony J. Limberakis, National Commander of the Archons, notes in statement that “throughout his lifetime of public service, Secretary Pompeo has been a staunch and steadfast defender of human rights, and is thus a richly deserving recipient of the Athenagoras Human Rights Award”.

“Secretary Pompeo has consistently demonstrated a heartfelt and deeply informed concern for the rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and all of the religious minorities in Turkey, as well for the plight of all those around the world who have suffered for exercising their freedom of conscience”, Dr Limberakis states.

“His 2020 visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate was a profound demonstration of his awareness of the central importance to the Orthodox Church and the world at large of the Holy Mother Church of Constantinople, and of the urgent necessity to protect and defend religious freedom”, he added.

On October 29, 2021, Michael R. Pompeo, gave the keynote address at the Founding Members Banquet of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation in New York City, in the presence of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, discussing the persecution of Christians and the state of religious freedom around the world.

On May 28, 2024, he addressed the 4th Archon International Conference on Religious Freedom, held in Athens, Greece.

In addition to serving as Secretary of State of the United States from 2018 to 2021, Michael R. Pompeo was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from Jan. 2017 to April 2018, and was elected to four terms in Congress representing the Fourth District of Kansas. He graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. He currently Serves as Senior Counsel for Global Affairs at the American Center for Law & Justice and is the Chair of the Helms School of Government at Liberty University.

Established in 1986, the Athenagoras Human Rights Award is given in honor of Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, who served as Archbishop of the Americas for 18 years before being elected Ecumenical Patriarch in 1948.

Previous recipients include former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush (and First Lady Barbara Bush), Joe Biden (as Vice President), former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; Mother Teresa of Calcutta; Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria and All Africa, Archbishop Demetrios of America and Archbishop Anastasios of Albania.

Source: https://www.greeknewsusa.com/mike-pompeo-to-receive-the-2025-athenagoras-human-rights-award/