Munich, May 6, 2025
Photo: rokmp.de
Hierarchs and clergy from four jurisdictions came together on Thursday, May 1, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the clerical service and monastic tonsure of His Eminence Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
The Liturgy in the Munich Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was led by His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas, the First Hierarch of ROCOR, who brought the wonderworking Kursk Root Icon with him, reports the ROCOR press service.
Photo: rokmp.de
He was joined by Met. Mark, Bishop Irenei of London, Bishop Job of Stuttgart, and Bishop Alexander of Verey of ROCOR, Metropolitan Joanikije of Montenegro and Metropolitan Gregory of Düsseldorf of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Seraphim of Germany, Central and Northern Europe of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Tikhon of Ruza of the Moscow Patriarchate, 50 priests, and 13 deacons.
The service was celebrated in Church Slavonic, Serbian, and German. After the Litany of Supplication, a prayer for peace was read.
Photo: orthodox-europe.org
At the end of the service, Met. Nicholas presented Met. Mark with a decree of blessing from the ROCOR Holy Synod, and the gathered hierarchs offered him memorial gifts. In turn, Met. Mark presented the hierarchs with episcopal Panagias and the priests with commemorative crosses.
All present were then treated to a festive trapeza.
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Met. Mark was born in then-East Germany in 1941 and moved to the west in 1954, settling in Frankfurt am Main. He studied Slavic languages and completed his doctorate in Ancient Russian Literature, entering the Orthodox Church in 1964 and later enrolling in the Theological Faculty of the University of Belgrade. There he came under the influence of the renowned Serbian Orthodox Theologian St. Justin Popovic and he decided to enter the monastic life.
He was tonsured by Bishop Paul of Stuttgart in 1975 and ordained priest in 1976. Four years later Fr. Mark was consecrated as Vicar Bishop of Munich and Southern Germany in November 1980, and he moved the bishop’s residence to the Monastery of St. Job of Pochaev where he revived the monastery along Athonite lines. Since 1982 he has been ruling bishop of Berlin and Germany, and in 1990 was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. In 1997 he was appointed overseer of the Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, which role he still fulfils.
From 1986 to 2017 His Eminence additionally served as ruling hierarch of the Diocese of Great Britain and Ireland. The current Diocesan Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God and Holy Royal Martyrs in Chiswick, London, was constructed at Vladyka Mark’s initiative and under his careful guidance.
Met. Mark is amongst the most senior hierarchs of the whole of the Russian Orthodox Church by length of time since consecration, and is an authority on Church dogmatics, canons and liturgical life.
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