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Orthodox Christian faithful who trace their
roots to Cappadocia filled the Church of the Mother of God here on the
Sunday of All Saints—June 23, 2019—as His All-Holiness, Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and His Beatitude, Metropolitan
Tikhon concelebrated the Divine Liturgy.
Metropolitan Tikhon and a delegation representing the Orthodox Church
in America that included Archpriest Alexander Rentel, Chancellor, and
Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak had been invited by His All-Holiness to
participate in the annual pilgrimage to Cappadocia in conjunction with a
three-day pilgrimage to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
His Eminence, Metropolitan Paisius of Lerou Kalimnou also
concelebrated with His All-Holiness, His Beatitude, and the OCA
delegation.
At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, His All-Holiness warmly
welcomed His Beatitude, recalling the many occasions on which
Metropolitan Tikhon, representing the Orthodox Church in America, had
visited the Patriarchate of Constantinople. He also spoke of the close
friendship that has been built as a result of those visits.
His Beatitude responded by thanking His All-Holiness for the
invitation, and especially for the opportunity to experience the
martyric witness of the deserted caves and church ruins across the
Cappadocian region. The complete text of Metropolitan Tikhon’s address
appears below.
During the pilgrimage, Metropolitan Tikhon and the OCA delegation had
the opportunity to visit the ancient cave churches and monasteries that
dot the region, as well as churches that had been closed following the
exchange of populations between Greece in Turkey in 1922.
Address of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon to
His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople
Sunday of All Saints
June 23, 2019
Your All-Holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew,
It is a great joy for me to concelebrate the Divine Liturgy with Your
All-Holiness, together with His Eminence, Metropolitan Paisios, and the
brothers who serve with us, on this great day of the Feast of All
Saints, when in the glory of Pentecost we honor the great cloud of
witnesses offered to us in the holy men and women of our Orthodox
Christian faith.
When I travel abroad, I normally bring the prayers and greetings of
the faithful of North America to the place where I am travelling. But
after these days, when I have had the honor of walking — at the
invitation of Your All-Holiness — in the lands of Cappadocia, I feel
that it is rather I who am receiving, on behalf of North Americans, the
prayers and embrace of the martyric witness which resound from the
deserted caves and the ruins of church temples around us.
In today’s Gospel, the Lord said to us: “And everyone who has left
houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or
lands for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit
eternal life.” These lands echo with the trials and loss of the past,
but these clouds of past sufferings are made brighter by the hope
offered to us by Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Who
for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the
shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It is this hope, this faith, this joy which we find fulfilled as we
gather as brothers and sisters in Christ in the celebration of this
Divine Liturgy, which is the goal of our pilgrimage in life. We have all
come here because we are seeking that which was lost: our homeland, our
families, and our churches. But this seeking is also for something
deeper in our hearts, as the Psalmist says: “As the deer pants after the
fountains of water, so pants my soul after Thee, O God. My soul
thirsted for God, the mighty, the living; when shall I come and appear
before the face of God” (Psalm 41:1).
I come from America, the land of freedom, the land of abundance, the
land of hope. It is to this land that many from Anatolia fled, and it is
the land to which many emigrated from Eastern Europe, from the Middle
East, and from other places where difficulties were to be found. But
there are difficulties to be found in America as well, and we have been
working, through the process of the Assembly of Bishops, to find
solutions by which all the Orthodox in our lands might offer a strong
and united witness to Christ and His Holy Church, in imitation of the
great saints that we celebrate today and in fulfillment of the
exhortation made by Your All-Holiness, that we all need “to move beyond
what is mine and yours, to what is ours.” This is the goal for us as
Orthodox Christians: to move beyond what is mine and yours, to what is
ours – and what is ours is Jesus Christ and the communion of the saints.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking,
as our parents and grandparents did, to Jesus Christ, Who gives us life
and Who gives us hope.
Thank you, Your All-Holiness, for your prayers and for your hospitality.
