A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 39 - Tuesday, September 28th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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BOSTON.- On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Archbishop Demetrios’ enthronement, (Sept. 19 1999), Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios sent him a congratulatory letter, calling the Archbishop’s ministry "significant ecclesiastical work." The Patriarch also wrote that Archbishop Demetrios was "drafted" to assume the Archbishopric Throne of America the Patriarch stated: "Having obeyed voluntarily/involuntarily, the dictating need of our Great Mother Church and having suddenly been drafted, you assumed the work of shepherding the Holy Archdiocese of America during days of difficulty and uncertain future, bearing this burden on spiritual shoulders dedicated to the Lord from the times of your youth." In another instance the Patriarch called the ministry of the Archbishop "most successful archepiscopal ministry." At the same time, Bartholomaios, in a Byzantine way, tells the Archbishop that there is room for improvement: "Of course, we are not unaware of the fact that everything human, by its very nature, comprises an element of incompleteness and admits the possibility of improvement."
The Patriarch
praised the Archbishop for the his love and
respect for the Phanar and "for all these things,
Most Reverend and deeply beloved brother in
Christ, accept in return the highest expression of
the well pleasing of the great and Holy Mother
Church of Christ, and ours personally, along with
the fervent prayer that the Lord of the mystical
vineyard fill with grace for many years, Your
beloved Reverence, healthy. Prospering and
rejoicing in the fruits of this laborious ministry
with absolute conviction that ‘your labor will not
be in vain in the Lord.’" |
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