His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland has invited the clergy and faithful of the Polish Orthodox Church to attend the first Divine Liturgy in the capital’s new Agia Sophia Cathedral on Saturday May 19, 2018.
According to the press release from the metropolitan’s chancellery, this will be the second important moment in the history of the cathedral, after the laying and consecration of the foundation stone by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in December 2015.
“Many of us have placed a personal brock in its walls as an expression of our faith and love for our forefathers,” the metropolitan writes referring to the memorial Cathedral built in honour of Orthodox refugees in 1915, martyrs in the Chełmskaya and Podlasie areas, victims of the Vistula Action (Wisła), from the village of Furmanów, and all those who have suffered and gave up their lives for Orthodoxy.
In his message, Metropolitan Sawa has invited all hierarchs, clerics, and faithful to the placing of the holy Cross on the cathedral’s main dome, which will be ‘a wondrous event on the 100th anniversary of the regaining of Poland’s independence.’
All are also invited to the placing of the holy Cross on the cathedral’s main dome, which will take place the same day, and which will be a wondrous event “on the occasion of the 100 years since the regaining of Poland’s independence.”
His Beatitude Sawa has been leading the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland since 1998. The Polish Church is known for its synodal decision regarding the adding of over forty Romanian Saints to its local church calendar.
Today, in Romania, the Romanian People’s Salvation Cathedral is under construction, a project dating from the War of Independence (1877-1878), a spiritual symbol dedicated to all the national heroes who sacrificed their lives for the defense of the homeland and the ancestral faith.
The Cathedral of the “salvation” or the liberation of the Romanian people from foreign domination will be consecrated in November 2018 by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
The National Cathedral is the main major project in the Centenary of the Great Union.
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Photography courtesy of Andrzej Chomczyk / Sztuka kadru
