Florence, Arizona, August 6, 2019
Photo: romfea.gr
Archbishop Elpidophoros, the head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration yesterday and today at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, Arizona.
The monastery was founded by Elder Ephraim, a spiritual child of the great Elder Joseph the Hesychast and former abbot of the Athonite Philotheou Monastery, who has founded 17 monasteries throughout America and Canada. Today’s feast marks the first visit of the new archbishop to one of the monasteries. A monastic assembly will also be held at St. Nektarios Monastery in Roscoe, New York, another of the Elder’s monasteries, on September 21-22.
According to the Greek outlet Romfea, Abp. Elpidophoros was accompanied by Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco and warmly welcomed by the brotherhood and abbot, Elder Paisios.
Abbot Paisios thanked the Archbishop for his visit and asked his blessing upon monasticism in America. He also asked him to be a supporter and patron of Elder Ephraim’s work, noting that the entire Orthodox world eagerly awaits the glorification among the saints of Elder Joseph, who revealed the mysteries of the spiritual life to Elder Ephraim.
In his turn, Abp. Elpidophoros thanked the abbot and the brotherhood, noting that this is his second visit to St. Anthony’s. “When I came seven years ago I had the blessing to speak with Elder Ephraim and listen to his beneficial words,” he recalled.
“Here in Arizona, God gave his blessing and permission to a holy elder to come, Elder Ephraim. He found a desert, a spiritual desert, a thirsty desert, and he made the barren wilderness of the desert, arable,” the Greek hierarch said.
“I would like to publicly express my gratitude to Elder Ephraim, who has brought forth many children, sons and daughters, of whom he can boast in Heaven.”
“The Archdiocese will always support the monks, and will always be a shelter and protection to all of them, to all the Abbots and to all the fathers who have chosen this difficult life. I have learned to love, respect and protect the monasteries,” Abp. Elpidophoros emphasized.
These words represent a welcome change from the attitude towards Elder Ephraim’s monasteries expressed in then-Archimandrite Elpidophoros’ speech at Holy Cross Seminary in 2009, when he said: “Against that gradual secularization of Orthodoxy in America, a reaction soon made its appearance in the form of a number of rapidly spreading monasteries of an Athonite influence, characterized by ultraconservative tendencies, attached to the letter of the law, and reacting to any form of relationship with other Christian denominations.”
“All of this is nothing but the manifestation of the intense thirst for a lost spirituality and a liturgical richness of which the Orthodox people of America have been for very long now deprived, forced, as they were, to embrace the Church only in the form of a sterile social activism,” he continued in his speech.
Following the service at St. Anthony’s today, Abp. Elpidophoros will serve a Paraklesis to the Mother of God at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix.
