On 10-11 February 2012 His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion made an archpastoral visit to the Holy Annunciation Parish, celebrating Vigil and Divine Liturgy and ordaining Andrew Smith to the rank of Deacon.
The Holy Relics of Saint Innokenty of Irkutsk were also present in the church for veneration.
Deacon Andrew is assigned to the Holy Annunciation parish.
His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, has arrived in Australia and is expected to stay till 10 April 2012.
Saint Innokenty lived during the reign of Tsar Peter I and became the first bishop of the Diocese of Irkutsk. He taught reading and writing to the local Buryat children, painted icons, built chapels and churches, prayed and preached.
As Priest Alexander Abiduev of Holy Trinity Church in Ulan-Ude, Russia, explained, “After a fire in the church of Voznesensky Monastery, where he was buried, though the church was burned to the ground, his relics were unharmed and discovered to be incorrupt. When he was to be re-interred, it was found that even his vestments survived. The local believers began to notice miraculous healings and miracles occurring from his relics. When people saw this, they started to pray to the saint, and many of their pleas were answered. With time, this led to the decision to canonize him and count him among the saints.”Continue Reading
The Holy and Wonderworking Relics of Saint Innokenty, first bishop of Irkutsk,
will visit the Diocese of Australia and New Zealand from
5 to 19 February 2012.
On the Great Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, 6/19 January 2012, the Great Blessing of Water was celebrated at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, outside, at the entrance to the cathedral.
This was the first opportunity for many to see the new icon mosaic of our Lord Jesus Christ together with the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul which was loving completed by Archimandrite Alexis (Rosentool) of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Bombala, and his many helpers, and was recently installed above the entrance to the cathedral.Continue Reading
The Great Feast of the Nativity of our Lord was celebrated at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral by the Cathedral clergy – Archpriest George Lapardin, Priest Simeon Nekipelov, Protodeacon Boris Evstigneev and Protodeacon Alexander Kotlaroff.
Please see below for a photoreport from both the eve and the day of the Feast.Continue Reading
Most Reverend fellow archpastors, most honorable fathers, brothers and sisters!
With profoundly heartfelt spiritual joy I greet all the faithful children of the Russian Church Abroad, spread all over the world like kernels of God’s wheat, with the great and salutary Feast of Christ’s Nativity! May the Lord send all of us this joy which saves the world. This gladness is the fruit of the struggle of faith, and stems from the triumph of the Incarnation, from God becoming man, from hearing the celestial doxology from the heavens above the city of Bethlehem.Continue Reading
