Belgrade, December 22, 2023
Photo: spc.rs
At a ceremony held yesterday, December 21, in the Library of the Association of the Blind of Serbia, His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church was presented with a certificate of gratitude for his support of the Association.
The organization unites more than 12,000 blind and partially sighted people in the country, reports the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Receiving the honor from the Association president, the Patriarch emphasized that the award is first of all “an expression of love for our Church.” The Gospel calls us to love one another, and anything good in the relationship between the Association and the Church is thanks to God, the primate said.
“Our obligation is to love, and when we fulfill this obligation, God is among us,” Pat. Porfirije said, emphasizing that regardless of our physiological presuppositions, capacities, and possibilities, regardless of the physical abilities we possess, when we speak of what is most important, we must underline the word love.
“He who is deprived of love or who has a deficit of love, is simply deprived of the possibility to come to true insights and understanding on any topic,” His Holiness said.
Many of those in the Association of the Blind “have an incomparably wider, more elevated, and deeper understanding of the essence” than people who have physical vision, “precisely because the main organ of vision is love for the other.”
In conclusion, Pat. Porfirije blessed all the Association’s work and efforts.
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