Archbishop Elpidophoros holds talks with Erdogan, Mitsotakis in NY

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America held talks in New York on Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in the American city for the United Nations General Assembly.

The meeting at Manhattan's Cipriani hotel was reportedly held at the request of the Turkish president and centered on the issue of Turkish minorities in Greece and the Greek minority in Turkey, the restoration of the Greek Orthodox Orphanage on one of the nine Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara and the prospects of reopening the Theological School of Halki.

“I stressed the importance of total protection of Religious Freedom and Human Rights,” Elpidophoros said in a post on Twitter on Thursday.

Erdogan also reportedly invited Elpidophoros, who was appointed archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in June, to visit to Turkey.

The archbishop later met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was also in New   York for the UN summit and who delivered a speech to Greek-Americans in the district of Astoria.

On the meeting with Mitsotakis, Elpidophoros tweeted that he “wished [the] new government to live up to the hopes of the Greek people by achieving progress and prosperity, and by addressing crucial social issues.”