Archons to Honor Mike Pompeo with Athenagoras Human Rights Award

Patriarch Bartholomew and Mike Pompeo photographed in 2021. Photo: J. Mindala

NEW YORK — This October, the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate will present the 2025 Athenagoras Human Rights Award to former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On the event page, the Archons announced that the honor will be granted to Pompeo "with the blessings of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the approval of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America."

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and Archon John A. Catsimatidis speaking with Secretary Pompeo. Photo: J. Mindala

At the Archon International Conference On Religious Freedom in 2024, Pompeo praised Pat. Bartholomew’s granting of autocephaly to the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), saying that this "gave Ukrainians the ability to exercise their true faith." 

In 2019, after the Tomos of autocephaly had been granted to the schismatic OCU by Constantinople, then-Secretary of State Pompeo met with so-called Metropolitan Epiphany of the OCU to congratulate him on his own receipt of the Athenagoras Human Rights award for "his defense of all Ukrainians’ ability to worship in accordance with their faith, free from external interference."

Sergeii Dumenko, or "Metropolitan" Epiphany of the OCU is pictured with Pompeo. Photo: U.S. State Department

Past politicians to receive the award include Andrew Cuomo, Joe Biden, George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, and Jimmy Carter. Religious figures to receive the award include the recently reposed Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, Archbishop Iakovos, Mother Theresa, and Desmond Tutu. 

A black-tie banquet will be held at the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York City on October 18, 2025.

Read also