Your Beatitude, Archbishop Stefan,
It is my great joy to welcome you to my primatial See of Washington, D.C., and to my cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. I pray that this historic concelebration will mark the beginning of a fruitful and enduring relationship between our Churches, by the mercy of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, with the blessing of the Mother of God whose icon graces us this day, and by the intercession of the holy Apostles and all the universal saints of our Orthodox Church.
To this end, in accordance with the Tomos granted to your Church by the Serbian Orthodox Church, it is my privilege, as Primate of the holy autocephalous Orthodox Church in America, on behalf of the Holy Synod of our Church, officially to recognize the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.
Indeed, on behalf of all the clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, I express our profound joy at the restoration of full communion with our brethren in the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and I jubilantly welcome the Ohrid Archbishopric into the family of local, autocephalous Churches.
May Christ our true God grant us ever-increasing unity of mind and heart, unto his glory and the building up of his kingdom. May he grant Your Beatitude and all the clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Macedonian Orthodox Church many blessed years.
I would also like to take the opportunity to greet the other members of Your Beatitude’s delegation, especially His Grace Bishop Metodije of the American and Canadian Diocese of the Macedonian Orthodox Church; it is a particular joy for many of our parishes and communities here in North America to now enter into even closer fraternal relations with the parishes and communities of the Macedonian Orthodox Church that have been our neighbors for many years. May the bonds of love and unity on the local level continue to grow between us.
It is also a great blessing to have with us His Grace Bishop Seraphim of Kostajnica, Vicar to the Metropolitan of the Midwest Diocese, who is representing His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije and the Holy Serbian Orthodox Church. Your Grace, we ask you to convey our deep gratitude to His Holiness and his Holy Synod for the visionary canonical action taken in granting the tomos of autocephaly to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. May the canonical communion among our Churches continue to increase as we together seek the furtherance of the apostolic work of the Church.
I also welcome the members of the diplomatic corps, especially His Excellency, the Honorable Zoran Popov, Ambassador of the Republic of North Macedonia to the United States, who honors us with his presence today and has graciously arranged for the private reception that will follow our liturgical celebrations.
Here in North America, many local communities of the Macedonian Orthodox Church can be found in the same geographic area of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in America who have concelebrated with us today. I am grateful for the presence of:
- His Eminence Archbishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and the Archdiocese of Western Pennsylvania;
- His Eminence Archbishop Irénée of Ottawa and the Archdiocese of Canada;
- His Eminence Archbishop Michael of New York and New Jersey, secretary of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America;
- His Eminence Archbishop Daniel of Chicago and the Midwest;
- His Grace Bishop Nikodhim of Boston and the Albanian Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America;
- His Grace Bishop Vasily of San Francisco and the West.
It is also a great joy to receive so many clergy and faithful from throughout the Orthodox Church in America and from our sister churches in these lands. Among the first, we welcome Igumen Nikodim and Fr. Mark from St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, representing His Grace Bishop Matthew of Sourozh and the Moscow Patriarchate.
Your Beatitude,
As an expression of gratitude for our concelebration today and as a sign of our desire to increase and strengthen the fraternal bonds of love and collaboration between our two Churches, I am pleased to present you with a small gift of this panagia, depicting the Mother of God surrounded by several of our beloved North American saints, and also this icon and these relics of the most recent saint to be glorified and added to the calendar of saints in these lands, Saint Olga of Kwethluk. May the most holy Mother of God, all the North American Saints, and especially Saint Olga ever guide you and protect you as you fulfill the heavy cross of primatial service.
I further assure you of the prayers of the Holy Synod, the monastics, the clergy, and all the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America for Your Beatitude and your Church and ask for your sacred prayers on our behalf. I now ask that you honor those who are gathered here with some words of wisdom and encouragement.