On Monday, December 30, 2024, Father Alexander Karloutsos, Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Spiritual Advisor of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, appeared on WABC Radio’s Sid & Friends in the Morning to discuss his meetings with the late President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at his home in Plains, Georgia on December 29, 2024.  

In a genial and wide-ranging conversation with Archon John A. Catsimatidis, activist Curtis Sliwa and host Sid Rosenberg, Father Alex described President Carter as “very humble, very bright.” Father Alex also discussed meeting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David during the negotiations over the Camp David Accords, and President Carter’s determination to bring peace to the troubled Middle East.  

Father Alex praised President Carter’s strong human rights record and noted that the late president honored His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Father Alex himself received in 2022. Father Alex also detailed how in 1985, President Carter traveled to Constantinople to visit His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarchate Demetrios.  

While visiting the Phanar, His Eminence Metropolitan Bartholomew of Philadelphia, who later became Ecumenical Patriarch, showed President Carter the burnt-out structure of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s main building, which had burned down in 1941. Carter spoke with Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal and urged him to grant permission for its reconstruction. Carter gave his chief of staff, George Schira, the responsibility of working with the Turks until permission was granted; the former president also worked with Archon Arthur Cheokas of blessed memory to gain permission from Turkish authorities to reconstruct. The new headquarters was finally constructed and dedicated in 1989.  

During the show, Father Alex also discussed the current turbulent situation for Christians in Syria.