With the blessing of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon and at the invitation of His Eminence, Archbishop Michael of Prague, Archpriest Daniel Andrejuk, the Orthodox Church in America’s Representative to the Moscow Patriarchate and Dean of Saint Catherine Church, Moscow, represented the OCA at the consecration of the Monastery of Saints Vaclav [Wenceslaus] and Ludmila.
Located some 30 kilometers from Prague, the women’s monastery was consecrated during the Divine Liturgy on Saturday, December 22, 2018. Presiding at the Liturgy and the Vigil celebrated the evening before was His Eminence, Metropolitan Agapit of Mohilev-Podolsk, Ukraine, together with local and visiting clergy. After the Divine Liturgy, Father Daniel greeted the hierarchs, clergy and faithful, including Abbess Valentina, on behalf of Metropolitan Tikhon and presented an icon of Saint John of San Francisco and Saint Catherine to the monastery.
On Sunday, December 23, Father Daniel concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with Metropolitan Agapit in Prague’s Church of the Great Martyr Catherine, which ministers to the spiritual needs of Ukrainians who in recent years have settled in Prague and the surrounding region.
“It’s interesting to note that Archbishop Michael has opened eight new parishes in Prague in the last four years, which minister to the spiritual needs of different ethnic groups that have moved to Prague,” explained Father Daniel. “There are many Ukrainians, Romanians, and Greeks that have their own parishes with their traditions and usually a priest from their home countries, all of which are under the omophorion of Archbishop Michael of Prague.”
Before his return to Moscow, Father Daniel concelebrated the Nativity Liturgy on Tuesday, December 25 at Prague’s Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, after which he presented a panagia on behalf of Metropolitan Tikhon to Archbishop Michael as a token of gratitude for the good relationship enjoyed by the Church of the Czech Lands and the Orthodox Church in America.
