His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada (Orthodox Church in America) had the blessing of concelebrating Sunday the Divine Liturgy for the great feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, according to the Julian unrevised calendar (by old style), with His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland at the holiest site in all of Poland yesterday.
10,000 faithful were gathered to celebrate the feast on the Holy Mount of Grabarka in the village of Nurzec-Stacja, near the border with Belarus, reports orthochristian.com.
The Holy Mount of Grabarka is considered to be the holiest location in Poland for Orthodox Christians. It is the site of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and is home to the women’s monastery of Sts. Marta and Mary.
The main Liturgy for the feast was celebrated at 10:00 AM by Met. Tikhon, Met. Sawa, Abp. Benjamin, and several other hierarchs of the Polish Church. About 10,000 faithful had gathered for the feast by this point.
After the reading of the Holy Gospel, Met. Sawa addressed the faithful with a festive word, saying, “Gathered on the holy mountain of Grabarka, we ‘update’ this event of the Transfiguration of the Lord. With our thoughts, our prayers, and our spiritual experience, we are in the Holy Land, on Mt. Thabor… in this place so important for us, we cry out, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.’ So we repeat, every year for centuries.”
The Polish primate then offered a word of greeting to Met. Tikhon, thanking him for the opportunity to serve together. The two primates exchanged gifts following the Liturgy, with Met. Sawa giving Met. Tikhon a cross and two episcopal Panagias, and Met. Tikhon giving Met. Sawa an icon of St. Herman of Alaska.
The holy day ended with the blessing of a cross erected in honor of the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence.
Photo Credit: orthochristian.com
