Patriarch of Alexandria: “May St Nektarios be our consolation for the 21st century”
The Patriarch of Alexandria & all Africa Theodoros in the monastic cell of Saint Nektarios. Photo from here.
In a moving
atmosphere, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria
and All Africa, officiated at the festive Divine Liturgy at the
Cathedral of St Nicholas in the place where St Nektarios lived, in
Hamzawi, Cairo, close to today’s Khan Khalili.
There, decades ago, at a distance of
just a few hundred meters from where thousands of tourists visit from
all over the world, is preserved on the most historic places, both for
the Ancient Patriarchate as well as for the community, the house where
St Nektarios lived when he served the Alexandrian Church as Patriarchal
Vicar of Cairo.
“It is a great blessing for Cairo and
Alexandria that he lived among us. Despite the bitterness that the place
he loved created for him, he came twice. He is the Saint we know in
sadness and joy, but he was a great theologian, as he knew by heart both
the Old and New Testaments and the Psalter. Forty of his works adorn
the Library of the Patriarchal Vicariate of Cairo. And his great work is
the verses for the All Holy Virgin “Agne Parthene” (O Virgin Pure)
emphasized Theodoros of Alexandria, speaking of St Nektarios, expressing
“enormous gratitude because he preserved the old apostolic Divine
Liturgy of the Apostle St Mark, which was maintained by St Meletios
Pegas and was conducted by Kyrillos of Alexandria in the Holy Monastery
of St George Old Cairo”.
Patriarch Theodoros also commemorated
today the late Patriarch Petros VII, who together with him and Makarios
of Kenya drew up the apology to St Nektarios.
“We, the clergy of Africa, are children
of St Nektarios, as every Hierarch of the Alexandrian Throne, every
missionary Priest in Africa, is also a child of St Nektarios”, noted the
Alexandrian Primate.
And Patriarch Theodoros, following the
custom that wants only St Nektarios to be on the patriarchal Throne on
this day, placed his icon there and in conclusion said:
“May he be our consolation for the 21st
Century and as long as this world exists, for generations to come to
praise, they will grow old, they will praise the Saint of hope, of
consolation and of love, our own Saint. And his grace from Cairo,
Aegina, to reach into all the hearts of people who hrt, because in our
day, pain and sadness are in abundance".
Please, see also
Photo from here
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