Syndesmos President expresses thanks to former Secretary-General

14 March 2000

Dear Vladimir,

With this letter, both on behalf of SYNDESMOS Board of Administration and personally, I would like warmly to thank you for your very significant contribution to the work of SYNDESMOS, initially as a member of its Board in the period 1989-1995 and
since 1995, as Secretary-General, and to ac-knowledge your long-standing commitment to the service of Orthodox youth for as long as I have known you.
You have devoted much of the best years of your life to SYNDESMOS: despite your family obligations you have worked hard
for aims which you believe in, and have spent endless hours travelling for the sake of the Fellowship, even to the point of endanger-ing your own life. Moreover, during these last four years, your work in the SYNDESMOS Secretariat has allowed hundreds of Ortho-dox youth worldwide to meet and witness to Christ, and is a testimony to your vision of the Fellowship in which you have remained firm. It is this vision which has also made you a key person in bringing the youth of the Orthodox Church of Poland close to SYNDESMOS in allowing it to participate very actively in the life of our Fellowship. Wherever you have been you have man-aged, with your sincere and respectful behaviour, to make long-lasting friendships and to be a living witness of the Orthodox Church to the heterodox world. I would like to thank you, Vladimir, for all these and I would also like to acknowl-edge
your patience and your humble accep-tance of criticism, even when it did not take into consideration the huge objective diffi-culties
that characterize the work of the Gen-eral Secretary of SYNDESMOS, or did not gave credit to you for all the positive services
that, by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, SYNDESMOS has offered to the Church during the years when the main responsibil-ity of its administration was in your hands.
Finally, please thank your wife Tania for her patience and for the discrete role which she has played in the work of SYNDESMOS
by your side.
May God bless you and your family in whatever you decide to do with your life in the future and allow you to be always a wor-thy servant of His Church.

Yours in Christ,
Manos Koumbarelis