Belgrade, June 9, 2025
Photo: spc.rs
His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church solemnly celebrated the Baptism of a group of children from elementary schools in the New Belgrade district of the Serbian capital on Saturday, June 7, on the eve of the great feast of Pentecost.
The report from the Serbian Orthodox Church does not indicate how many children received Holy Illumination, though from the pictures it seems to have been at least a dozen.
The children were received by full immersion in the St. Simeon the Myrrh-streaming Church’s Baptismal font.
His Holiness was concelebrated by His Grace Bishop Hilarion of Novo Brdo, Archimandrite Danilo of the St. Simeon Church, where the Sacrament was celebrated, and clergy of the Belgrade-Karlovci Diocese.
In his homily, the Patriarch told the newly baptized children that through the Sacrament they have entered God’s eternal embrace and begun their true spiritual education. He instructed them to live as their best selves by being faithful to God through reading the Gospel and treating family, friends, and all people with love, explaining that following God’s will brings joy and peace, while spiritual unrest indicates areas needing correction. He encouraged them to continue their journey through Holy Communion, which keeps them united with God and enables them to love others.
Photo: spc.rs
Read his full homily:
Dear children, today Heaven and earth rejoice, because you have come through the Holy Spirit into an embrace with our Lord Jesus Christ Who has always embraced you and always loved you. Behold, now you too, and all of us, have embraced Him through the holy Mystery of Baptism, because you were baptized today in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the name of the Holy Trinity, and on the eve of the feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and His disciples.
Today the Holy Spirit has descended upon you. His grace has descended upon you and enlightened you with true and proper sanctification and enlightenment and brought you into true and proper education, because all knowledge and every skill, everything we are and everything we have, if it is not enlightened and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, is meaningless.
This is the beginning of your life in the Church, and that means that today we are all illuminated by the joy with which both Heaven and earth rejoice, because in the Church nothing is individual, nothing is only ours—that is, it is ours, but it is also communal. Therefore we rejoice not only we on earth, but Heaven also rejoices, and the angels, and God’s saints, because you have opened a beginning that should be sealed both by Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ at the holy Liturgy, and by your effort to be the best you can be.
Photo: spc.rs
Be the best you can be for God and always keep in mind God’s love and His embrace. That love of God and remaining in His embrace means that we too strive to embrace those who embrace us. That love means that you do everything you can to be good to God, reading the holy Gospel and striving to fulfill what is written in the Gospel, but also to be good toward all those you care about, first to mama, papa, brothers, sisters, friends, relatives, neighbors... but also to be the best you can be toward all people you meet. When you do this, then you will be the best possible to yourselves.
Why? Because you will have joy in your heart and in your soul. You will have peace, and that is the most important thing of all. And know that whenever you are not joyful, you need to pay attention and understand that you have not done something as you should, because if you had done everything as you should, then there would be no reason for you not to be joyful. If you have unrest in your soul, then you need to look into your soul and see what it's about. Because as soon as we have unrest within ourselves, it means we have not done everything as we should, because when we do everything as we should or, even better to say, when we strive to do everything as God wants from us and as we want others to do to us, we will then be joyful and peaceful.
I congratulate you and may you, God willing, tomorrow on the feast of the Holy Trinity, on the feast of Pentecost, receive Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ, and know that what you should strive for throughout your entire life is to always be in an embrace with God, and that is Holy Communion, to be in unity with Him, for you to embrace Him as He embraces you, and when you do that, know that you will embrace everyone and everything and that you will have as many embraces as you need. Congratulations and may the Lord bless you all.
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