“There is no greater illness in the Church than drifting away from the true faith,” Metropolitan Teofan of Moldavia and Bucovina said on Sunday, during the patronal feast of the Copou Monastery in Iași.
The monastic community honoured its patron Saints Athanasius and Cyril, Archbishops of Alexandria.
“The Church has set before us faces of holiness: the Most Holy Mother of God, the heavenly powers and the saints of the Church—among whom today we venerate with particular devotion the great hierarchs, Saints Athanasius and Cyril, protectors of this holy monastery,” Metropolitan Teofan said.
The metropolitan recalled that Saint Basil the Great described Saint Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, as “the physician for all the illnesses found in the Churches”—that is, the one who preserved the true faith, he explained.
Defenders of the Creed
Saint Cyril, meanwhile, is described by Saint Nikolai Velimirovich as “the seal of the Fathers,” the metropolitan added.
He noted that the two saints “fought with their whole being to preserve the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Symbol—namely the Creed—composed in the time of Saint Athanasius the Great, the first part, and the second at the Second Ecumenical Council.”
“Saint Cyril, a participant at the Third Ecumenical Council, was the man sent by God to preserve within the Church the inheritance of the Symbol of Faith.”
“May the good God help us to keep the zeal of the holy hierarchs Athanasius and Cyril—the zeal to preserve the right faith—and, as far as we are able, to follow their path, in the hope that God will have mercy on us and that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, through His divine-human work, will take root within our being and we will live accordingly.”
During the service, worshippers venerated the reliquary containing the relics of the two saints.
Liturgical responses were provided by the “Mystikon” Choir, made up of monastics from Iași-area monasteries, conducted by Adrian Sîrbu, director of the academic choir “Byzantion”.
At the time of the Communion hymn, many faithful and their children received Holy Communion.
About Copou Monastery
On the site of today’s Copou Monastery once stood a princely estate, where a wooden church previously existed. According to a local tradition, during a Tatar invasion, Lady Tudosca (Theodosia), the wife of Prince Vasile Lupu, hid in a hollow tree trunk.
The ruler searched for his wife and found her in those parts and, in thanksgiving for this deliverance, the Prince of Moldavia decided to build a monastery, consecrated in 1638 by Patriarch Cyril Lucaris of Constantinople.
About the saints
Saint Athanasius the Great was born in 296, became the 20th bishop of Alexandria, and remains one of Christianity’s greatest theologians. He is known as a “champion of Orthodoxy” for his lifelong struggle against Arianism, a heresy that questioned the divinity of Christ the Saviour.
The commemoration of Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, is observed on June 9. For five years, Cyril lived on Mount Nitria, practising asceticism and purifying himself of passions. His uncle, Patriarch Theophilus, ordained him, and after Patriarch Theophilus fell asleep in the Lord, the clergy and the people elected Cyril patriarch.
Foto credit: Doxologia.ro / Flavius Popa
