Source: Orthodox Church in America
December 4, 2017
On Saturday, December 2, 2017, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon was among the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches who addressed the Bishops Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Patriarchate and the Election of Patriarch Tikhon.
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It was in 1917—on the eve of the Russian Revolution—that the All-Russian Council, which was meeting in Moscow, elected Saint Tikhon to the Patriarchal Office, thereby reestablishing the Patriarchate which had been abolished in the early 1700s by Emperor Peter the Great. Saint Tikhon had served as Bishop and Archbishop of North America from 1898 until his return to his homeland in 1907.
Address of Metropolitan Tikhon to the Bishops Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
on the Occasion of the Centenary of
the Patriarchate and the Election of Patriarch Tikhon
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Your Holinesses, Your Beatitudes, Your Eminences and Your Graces, Members of the Bishops Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Honored Guests,
It is a great joy to be here, in the company of my fathers and brothers in Christ, the Primates and leaders of the Orthodox Churches throughout the world, and at the invitation of our brother, His Holiness, Kirill, the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, to honor Saint Tikhon, the 11th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and first in the line of the restored Patriarchate, the anniversary of which we celebrate this week.
I come to you from the far-away lands of North America, with a small delegation representing the Orthodox Church in America, to offer a few words before this august body concerning the great man of God and confessor whose name I bear and who is also my predecessor in the United States and Canada, where he served as ruling hierarch of the North American diocese from 1898 to 1907.
Bishop Tikhon had a vision for Orthodoxy in America, in which the future united Orthodox Church in the New World would include all the national Orthodox communities, with Arabic, Greek and Serbian bishops leading those communities – all united in one Archdiocese led by a Russian Orthodox Archbishop. There is even a written record showing that Archbishop Tikhon saw a future autocephalous Orthodox Church in the New World. Before leaving America, he succeeded in moving towards realizing his vision, with such actions as the appointment of a Bishop of Brooklyn for the Arab Orthodox and a Bishop of Alaska for the Alaskan native communities.
...Read the rest at Orthodox Church in America.
