Many Years to His Holiness Patriarch Irinej

From that day on, the Life-giving Spirit guides the Bride of Christ, The Church, into the fulfillment of the Eschaton, the establishment of our full communion with God in the age to come.

From the Apostles, their disciples and onward, the Lord has called and appointed countless laborers in His vineyard. The fullness of God’s Church in Serbia beginning with St. Sava (1169-1236), her first archbishop, St. Arsenije I Sremac, Sava’s successor and consequently all their other successors including Patriarch Pavle of blessed memory, in an unbroken chain linked all the way back to the Apostles and Christ, has been blessed with a new Patriarch, His Holiness Irinej.

Indeed, the Lord calls and He appoints his laborers. The 45^th patriarch on the throne of the Serbian archbishops and patriarchs, called by God as the first among his equal brethren the bishops, has a heavy cross to bear. He nonetheless has accepted that cross with faith bearing in mind the words of Christ: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew16:24)

Following Christ means to constantly seek to fulfill His will and to live in communion with Him. The Church and those appointed to ‘oversee’ (the meaning of the Greek word for bishop, episkopos) her mission in the world know that it is necessary to be existentially involved in the world while not being conformed to the world, but rather, working to elevate the world to the level of the Church as the Kingdom of God.

It is necessary for us, the faithful and clergy and monastics of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America, as in the entire Serbian Orthodox Church, to pray as always for our Patriarch that God may grant him spiritual strength, divine wisdom and guidance.

We thank God for giving us his Holiness Patriarch Irinej. We wish him many fruitful years on the throne of the Serbian archbishops and patriarchs.

Protopresbyter Bratso Krsic