On Sunday, June 6, 2021, Archpriest Alexander Rentel, Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph, Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, at Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Brooklyn, NY, together with cathedral dean, Archpriest Thomas Zain. After the dismissal of the Divine Liturgy, His Eminence and local civil leaders unveiled a new street sign that designates the street that the cathedral is on as “St. Raphael of Brooklyn Place.” This new designation was to have taken place in 2020, but had been postponed due to the pandemic. In addition to a number of Antiochian clergy, Abbot Nicodemus Balyasnikov, Cleric of Saint Nicholas Cathedral, New York, NY, Secretary to the Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, and Priest Mark Rashkov, the Vice-Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, also concelebrated the Divine Liturgy and attended the ceremony.
