Veria, Greece, July 1, 2022
Hierarchs from throughout the Orthodox world came together yesterday to celebrate the holy Apostle Paul on the site where he preached 2,000 years ago in Veria, Greece.
Beginning from the Metropolitan Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Veria, the hierarchs, clergy, and faithful processed to the “Tribune of the Apostle Paul,” where they celebrated Great Vespers for the feast of the Synaxis of the Holy Apostles according to the new calendar.
According to Romfea, the service brought together hierarchs from eight Churches: Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece. The service capped off a month-long celebration of the holy Apostle Paul, the founder of the Church of the Gentiles.
The homily was offered by the local hierarch, Metropolitan Panteleimon of Veria, who referred to the great Apostle as “a source of water for the faithful of the world!” and recounted the many persecutions and sufferings he endured for the sake of the Lord and the Church.
However, “Patience, prayer and trust in Christ are the means by which he manages crises… The great Apostle Paul resorts to prayer, because he is aware of his illness and knows that his great strength is Christ, for whose sake he endures everything,” Met. Panteleimon emphasized.
He also spoke of the Greek genocide in Asia Minor 100 years ago, in which people were “Uprooted violently and needlessly from their ancestral homes, from cities where almost 1900 years ago the Apostle Paul had preached the Gospel of salvation.”
“They were forced to flee, persecuted, like the first Apostle… They were shipwrecked, found at the bottom of the sea, suffered from the journeys and the various dangers and arrived devastated and alone, to do the best they could, to survive and stand on their feet.”
However, in the midst of such suffering, the people also took up the weapons of patience, prayer, and trust in God, as had the Apostle Paul, Met. Panteleimon preached.
At the same time, hierarchs and clerics of the Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Greece also gathered to celebrate Great Vespers on the Holy Rock of the Acropolis, where the Holy Apostle Paul preached in Athens.
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