OCA Chancery
Syosset, New York
To the Venerable Hierarchs, Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America
Dearly beloved,
The beginning of the ecclesiastical new year invites all of us to enter the mystery of salvation. It calls us to embrace the liturgical rhythm of the Church through which the great deeds of God became a living experience. From this living experience the mission of the Holy Spirit is confirmed. From this living experience the ministry of Christ continues to call all into the Kingdom of the Father.
As we enter the ecclesiastical new year I want to once again encourage every parish, whether large or small, to avail itself of the rich and irreplaceable legacy of liturgical life. To do this requires a commitment from the entire parish community. And the basis of the commitment must be formed by the desire to pray and to be witnesses of God’s Kingdom.
Without prayer, both corporate and personal, the Church’s missionary endeavors will be severely handicapped. Without its liturgical context the Gospel itself will be deprived of its power to draw the world into new and eternal life. For it is only in the context of corporate worship that the Gospel’s proclamation concerning the coming of God’s Kingdom is made present here and now. From this inaugurated presence the Church is sent into the world so that we who are “God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9) may show and convince the world of its purified and transfigured destiny.
Beloved in the Lord, together we must strive to make our parishes living bodies of prayer which seek to draw all who hunger and thirst after righteousness into the very life of the Triune and Tripersonal God. Together we have been called to build up the body of Christ so that the anxious and searching human heart may find rest in the Kingdom.
With love in the Christ,
+ THEODOSIUS
Archbishop of Washington,
Metropolitan of All America and Canada