Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 6, 2026
Photo: assemblyofbishops.org
Eleven hierarchs of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America concelebrated a pan-Orthodox Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
Four priests and two archdeacons served with them, and five more hierarchs were present in prayer. More than 300 faithful from the Pittsburgh area attended, the Assembly reports.
The Liturgy was presided over by Archbishop Elpidophoros of America of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, chairman of the Assembly of Bishops.
Bishop Irinej of Eastern America (Serbian Orthodox Church) gave the homily, which centered on the day’s Gospel reading, the Golden Rule. “How easy it is to love those who love you, is it not?” he asked, before turning to what he called “the most difficult of all commandments which Christ has ever given us”: to love our enemies.
Bishop Irinej recalled how hard it was for the Serbian Orthodox Church during a decade of civil wars to preach love for one’s enemies. He spoke of the late Patriarch Pavle, “diminutive in size but larger than life itself,” who was often asked about the wars. People would ask, “What is truth?” and the Patriarch would tell them, “You’ve asked the wrong question. You have to ask who is truth because Christ is truth incarnate.”
From this, Bishop Irinej said, we come to understand that Christ is also love incarnate. “Where love is present, God will also be there present,” he said. “And most certainly where God is present, there too is love, for He is love.”
Every person, he said, is made in the image and likeness of the Savior. “We are all icons, so we must love the icon in every person,” he said. As for sin and hatred, he said the answer is simple: “Love the sinner, hate the sin, and then you will save yourself.”
He closed by saying that loving those who hate us is “indeed very achievable,” and that all we have to do is “overcome self and let Christ stand there before us and with our enemy.”
Fr. Eleftherios Constantine, dean of the cathedral, welcomed the hierarchs and expressed the well wishes of the Pittsburgh clergy and faithful for a productive convening of the Assembly. The hierarchs were then invited to a reception in the community hall hosted by the cathedral community.
The hierarchs who concelebrated or attended the service represented the Orthodox Church in America, the Antiochian Archdiocese, the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, and the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese.
Orthros was chanted by the cathedral chanters, led by Amy Hogg, and the Divine Liturgy by the Pan-Orthodox Choir of Pittsburgh, directed by Archpriest Thomas Soroka.
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