Department for External Church Relations
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The Patriarchal exarch for South East Asia celebrates the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Ostankino, Moscow.
DECR Communication service, 01.02.2023.
On 29th January on the thirty-third Sunday after Pentecost, the Patriarchal exarch for South-East Asia the metropolitan of Singapore and South-East Asia Sergius headed the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Ostankino, Moscow, reports the site of the Patriarchal exarchate of South-East Asia.
Celebrated with His Eminence were the metropolitan of Manila and Hanoi Paul, the archbishop of Pyatigorsk and Cherkessia Theophilact, the archbishop of Korea Theophan, the bishop of Jakarta Pitirim and the clergy of the Trinity Church in Ostankino.
At the end of the service metropolitan Sergius congratulated the faithful on the day of the Resurrection and delivered his archpastoral homily to them. The bishop particularly noted that “today I have with joy celebrated the Divine Liturgy with fellow bishops and those who work alongside me in the lands of South-East Asia and the Caucasus.
I extend my heartfelt greetings to archbishop Theophilact, who labours in the northern Caucasus and the Kabardion and Balkarian and the Karachay and Cherkessian republics, who is the administrator of the dioceses of Baku and Pyatigorsk and the parishes of the Patriarchal deanery in Turkmenistan.
I extend my greetings to metropolitan Paul, who heads the Orthodox parishes on the territory of the diocese of the Philippines and Vietnam, where there are already thirty-three parishes.
I extend my greetings to archbishop Theophan, who heads the diocese of Korea, which extends over both countries of North and South Korea. In these lands archbishop Theophan unites our compatriots and Orthodox faithful on the Korean peninsula.
Today praying together with us was bishop Pitirim, the auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Singapore, which includes the parishes in Indonesia, where the population comes to three-hundred million people living on a territory twenty times smaller than that of the territory of Russia.
Also joining us today in sharing the joy of prayer was archimandrite Oleg, the builder of the parishes in the diocese of Thailand, where eleven church buildings have already been constructed.
If fifteen years ago I would have been told that the Orthodox faith would flourish in far-off Asia, I would not have believed it. Yet today the Patriarchal exarchate of South-East Asia consists of more than eighty parishes, and all of this is thanks to the grace of God and the labours and prayers of the bishops and those who work in the exarchate.
God can never be in error. If we believe that all things that happen in our lives are guided by God, then we would see that through our life experience and at times through our pain, through our sense of abandonment, the Lord leads every one of us along his path.”
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