New York City, November 23, 2022
Photo: mospatusa.com
In 1902, St. Tikhon (Bellavin), the future Patriarch of Moscow, celebrated the great consecration of St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York City.
On Sunday, November 20, His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, led the celebration of the Moscow Patriarchate cathedral’s 120th anniversary, reports the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA.
Photo: mospatusa.com
The celebration began the evening before with the All-Night Vigil. During the Polyeleos, an icon of St. Tikhon and the holy Hieromartyr Alexander Hotovitsky painted by Nadezhda Nestorchuk of St. Petersburg specifically for the occasion, containing a part of the lid of the reliquary of the original altar table with the original signature of St. Tikhon, then the Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and North America, was presented for the veneration of the faithful.
The next morning, at the invitation of His Grace Bishop Matthew of Sourozh, the Interim Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, Met. Nicholas celebrated the Divine Liturgy with a host of clergy from ROCOR, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church in America, the Antiochian Archdiocese, and the Serbian Church.
After Holy Communion, the clergy served a short moleben to St. Tikhon.
Photo: mospatusa.com
Following the service, Met. Nicholas addressed the faithful, saying in part:
A great event for us today is the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in this majestic Patriarchal Cathedral, with which we worthily honored both this little Pascha of Christ and the milestone date of the 120th anniversary of the great consecration of this cathedral. Its history is illuminated by the grace-filled deeds, service, and tears of the Holy Hierarch Tikhon, the illustrious confessor and Patriarch of All Russia, who still continues to enjoy the fervent veneration of all Orthodox in the United States of America; the Holy Hierarch Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn, a great friend of our people and a close assistant to the future Patriarch, who pastorally laid down his life for the wellbeing and prosperity of the Syro-Arab mission in North America; Protopresbyter Alexander Hotovitsky, the great missionary and new martyr, who, together with the righteous Alexis Toth, worked hard for the conversion of Carpathian Rusyns from the Unia to Holy Orthodoxy. May their apostolic zeal be a constant model for us in that service in a strange land (Ps. 136:4), to which we are called!
Fr. Igor Vyzhanov, rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral, thanked Met. Nicholas for the service and the joy of prayerful communion, and presented him with a gift of fabric for a metropolitan’s mantia. He also greeted the representatives of the OCA and Antiochian and Serbian Churches, noting that in his time, St. Tikhon united all their people under his one omophorion. Each was then presented with an icon of Sts. Tikhon and Alexander Hotovitsky.
The celebration then continued with a festive meal prepared by the cathedral sisterhood.
OrthoChristian has also recently reported on the 105th anniversary of a ROCOR parish in Pittsburgh, and the anniversaries of two OCA parishes.
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
