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Committee on Reunion and Intercommunion, showing thus a will by
the Anglican Communion for the progression of Ecumenical Relations.

At the end of World War I Britain had control of Orthodox holy
places in Palestine. On the other hand, Britain also protected the Ecu-
menical Patriarchate in Constantinople after the Great War, thus the
Orthodox set eyes on Britain as their main hope against the dangers

and di?culties they had to go through in the East. What they wanted
was money, yearning for the political might that the Archbishop of Can-
terbury had through his power to intervene in government decisions.

On the other hand, the Orthodox Church showed through its talks that
it is reluctant in accepting new ideas swiftly, taking into consideration
two millennia of theology, practice, tradition, ecclesiology and church

life.
A momentous event took place in 1920, whereby, after the invita-

tion of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Ecumenical Patriarchate sent
representatives to the Lambeth Conference of the same year for the

?rst time in its history. This of course was understood as being a major
progression in the relations between the two Churches. This started a
tradition whereby from this Conference onwards Orthodox representa-

tives were invited to Lambeth, “either to take part in o?cial or uno?-
cial joint theological discussions or simply to be present as observers.”26

After the Great War, which brought West and East (in ecclesiasti-

cal terms) closer, we have the establishment in 1922 of the Archdiocese
of Thyateira and Great Britain in London, as an Exarchate of the Ecu-
menical Patriarchate of Constantinople making it the ?rst Greek Or-
thodox Archdiocese in the West where Germanos Strenopoulos was

appointed as its ?rst Archbishop (1922-1951). This was, of course,
achieved with the help and assistance of the Anglican Bishops in Brit-
ain, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without the good rela-

tions between the Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Church, the
?rst Orthodox Archdiocese in the West could have been established in

26 Istavridis, 1966, p. 15.

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