Warsaw, November 25, 2019
Photo: orthodox.pl
His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw, the primate of the Polish Orthodox Church, has been serving the Lord in the episcopal ministry for 40 years.
On Sunday, he celebrated the anniversary of his episcopal consecration, which took place in 1979 when he assumed responsibility for the Diocese of Łódź and Poznań. The anniversary was celebrated in the Warsaw Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene with all the hierarchs of the Polish Orthodox Church and Metropolitan Isidore of Smolensk of the Russian Church, together with Polish clergy, reports the official site of the Polish Orthodox Church.
Photo: orthodox.pl
Following the Divine Liturgy, a thanksgiving service was celebrated during which they glorified God for the years of His Beatitude’s service and asked for his continuing health and physical strength. Following the service, Met. Sawa gave an emotional speech, noting the importance of the Warsaw cathedral in his life, where his spiritual life was formed in the 1950s in the difficult post-war times. “It was here in Warsaw, in this temple, that I gradually found peace for my soul and inner balance. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable,” he said.
He also thanked the Lord for all the joys and the sorrows of his life in the Church. “I felt the hand of the Lord on me in the most difficult moments of my pastoral life,” His Beatitude emphasized.
Photo: orthodox.pl
He also thanked all of his brother hierarchs and the clergy and faithful whom he has worked with over the past 40 years and encouraged the people to remain strong in their faith as have all the saints. He ended his words with a prayer to the Lord to grant him strength and mercy as he grows older.
On behalf of the Council of Bishops, His Eminence Archbishop Abel offered his wishes to His Beatitude, noting his many and invaluable services to the Polish Church and in relations between Local Churches. “For many, the person of Your Eminence is an example to follow and an unsurpassed example of trust in God, faith and dedication to the service of the Church and other people,” Abp. Abel said.
After the official speeches, Met. Sawa spent a long time receiving wishes and bouquets of flowers from his adoring flock.
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Photo: orthodox.pl
By decision of the Council of Bishops of November 16, 1979, Archimandrite Sawa, then the head of the Monastery of St. Onuphry in Jabłeczna was elected hierarch of the Diocese of Łódź and Poznań. The rite of appointmet took place on November 24, 1979 at the Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene in Warsaw, and he was consecrated the following day.
In 1981, he was transferred to the Diocese of Białystok and Gdańsk. He was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 1987, and on May 12, 1998, the Holy Synod unanimously elected Abp. Sawa as Archbishop of Warsaw, Metropolitan of All Poland. The enthronement took place on May 31, 1998.
