Dear Clergy, Faithful, and Friends:
Εὐλογία Κυρίου. Да благословит вас Господь. Dumnezeu să vă binecuvânteze. May the Lord bless you.
With
the blessing of His Eminence, Bishop Auxentios, I have the great
pleasure of informing you that this morning in Sofia, Bulgaria, at the
Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God, His Eminence, Bishop
Photiy of Triaditza, Chief Hierarch of our Sister Church, the Old
Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, was elected and enthroned as
Metropolitan by the provisional members of the Hierarchal Synod of the
Church, Their Eminences, Archbishop George of Kishinev and Moldova,
Bishop Nikon of Ishim and Siberia, and Bishop Kyrill of Voronezh and
Southern Russia, from our Sister Church, the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad, under Metropolitan Agafangel.
His
Eminence, Metropolitan Photiy is especially beloved among our faithful
here in America, on account of his long association with the former Holy
Synod in Resistance, which Consecrated him. (I had the immense honor of
being, unworthily, among his Co-Consecrators.) During the years of
communion between the Holy Synod in Resistance and the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad, under Metropolitans Vitaly and Laurus (prior to its
union, in September [actually May] of 2007, with the Moscow
Patriarchate), Metropolitan Photiy visited our former parishes in the
U.S., during which visits he also visited a number of communities of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, many of whose members knew the founder
of the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria, St. Seraphim the Wonderworker of
Sofia (glorified by the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria and,
subsequently, the Moscow Patriarchate and the Bulgarian Patriarchate in
Sofia).
Like
the Synod in Resistance, His Eminence also broke communion with the
Church Abroad when it united with Moscow, and when we united with the
Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, he and his Faithful
followed us. In fact, the ecclesiological document that formed the
basis for our union was largely written by Metropolitan Photiy. His
Eminence, educated in Classics and theology at the University of Sofia,
where he also taught as an assistant professor, was a secret Priest,
ordained by the late Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle, until the
fall of communism in Bulgaria. He was subsequently Consecrated to the
episcopacy. He is the author of numerous books on theology and the
Orthodox spiritual life, one translated into English and published by
our Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies (The Road to Apostasy: Significant Essays on Ecumenism).
I
would ask all of you, on behalf of Bishop Auxentios—who spoke briefly
with Metropolitan Photiy this morning after Liturgy, promising him that
he would do so—to pray for the new Metropolitan of the Old Calendar
Church of Bulgaria and for his continued service to his Church and
Faithful. His Eminence is widely revered in Bulgaria as a luminary and
standard bearer of Orthodox tradition in that country: a staunch and
courageous defender of the faith and an inspiration to the “Small Flock”
of the Bulgarian Orthodox people, who were converted to Orthodoxy more
than a century before Russia.
Axios, axios, axios! Many, many years to our new Metropolitan, whose enthronement is for all of us a foretaste of Pascha!
Least Among Monks, † Bishop Chrysostomos
------
The Most Reverend Chrysostomos, former
Archbishop and Metropolitan emeritus of Etna
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