Košice, Slovakia, November 12, 2019
Photo: Facebook
Hierarchs of three Local Churches came together in Western Slovakia on Sunday, November 10, to celebrate the feast of the great St. John the Merciful.
This year marks the 1,400th anniversary of St. John’s blessed repose.
The Liturgy for the feast was celebrated by Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro of the Serbian Orthodox Church, together with the local hierarch, Archbishop Juraj of Michalovce and Košice, and Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary, the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and local and visiting clergy, in the Cathedral of St. John the Merciful in Košice, reports Met. Anthony.
On the same day, the three hierarchs took part in the consecration of the cornerstone for a new monastery in honor of St. Basil of Ostrog, the great Montenegrin saint. In his speech, Met. Amfilohije said the monastery would be like the Carpathian Ostrog, and he remarked that in sanctifying the cornerstone, he was as if returning to his homeland, as his ancestors and the ancestors of all Serbs came from the Carpathian region.
Photo: Facebook For his part, Met. Anthony promised that he would be praying, together with the brothers of the Kiev Caves Lavra, for the monastery to be built as quickly as possible, and expressed the hope to return for the consecration of the church. He noted that, “Christianity is the salt of the earth, and monasticism is the salt of Christianity.”
The day before, Met. Anthony and Abp. Juraj concelebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the city of Mikhailovsko.
Following the Liturgy, Met. Anthony gave the Mikhailovsko-Košice Diocese a gift of an icon with a particle of the relics of St. Elena of the Kiev-Florovsky Monastery, and St. Sophia of Pokrov Monastery.
In January, Abp. Juraj celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the feast of St. Theodosius the Great in the Church of St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves in the Far Caves at the Kiev Caves Lavra.
