Metropolitan Tikhon sends greetings to President-elect Trump
On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, sent greetings to President-elect Donald J. Trump, wishing him well as he takes on “the heavy yoke of leadership of our United States of America.”
“On behalf of the clergy and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America please accept my sincere greetings on your election as the 45th President of the United States of America,” Metropolitan Tikhon wrote. “After a long and a hard-fought campaign in which the people of our nation expressed their will for the leadership of the United States, it is my prayer that healing and peace will come to this land so that we as a nation might continue the good work we have to do and, as Abraham Lincoln exhorted, that we do so ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right… [and] to bind up the nation’s wounds.’
“Indeed there is much to be done as we strive to maintain President George Washington’s vision of a republic that is ‘open to receive not only the opulent and respected stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges,’” Metropolitan Tikhon concluded. “May our Lord Jesus Christ grant you wisdom, health, peace, well-being and spiritual strength as you take on the heavy yoke of leadership of our United States of America.”
Metropolitan Tikhon’s greeting is available in PDF format.