The Shepherd, March 2006
BROOKWOOD NEWS, 1
VISIT OF ARCHBISHOP MARK
ON THE FEAST of the Three Great Hierarchs, Sunday 30th January / 12th February, His Grace Archbishop Mark celebrated the Divine Liturgy at Saint Edward’s Church, Brookwood. He was greeted at the church door and presented with the traditional bread and salt by parishioner, Christopher Shaw. Fr Alexis, Protopresbyter- Stavrophore Milun Kostic of St Sava Serbian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Thomas Hardy from the London Russian Orthodox Church, Fr Peter Baulk, Fr Paul Elliott of the St Elizabeth Mission in Birkenhead, and Fr Stephen Fretwell concelebrated with the Archbishop, and Fr Hierodeacon Sabbas assisted. Having recently joined our diocese from the Moscow Patriarchate, it was the first time that Fr Stephen had served with the Archbishop. Archbishop Mark preached on the Sunday Gospel, the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, pointing out that the Publican’s life was God-centred, whereas the Pharisee’s was man-centred.
The Archbishop had come partly to take the opportunity of talking to our people about the Moscow Patriarchate / ROCA rapprochement process, but under the influence of certain subversive elements in the parish, aided by those who should have known better, the day was rather highjacked at the end of the Liturgy. Then, tipped off by those elements, Archbishop Mark presented Fr Alexis with a citation from the Synod of Bishops of ROCA, marking the thirtieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, which had occurred just over two weeks previously. Fr Sabbas was instructed to read this to the congregation before it was presented. Serbian choristers in the congregation sang their traditional chants as the clergy unvested, and then for the Parish Breakfast and the Archbishop’s talk we transferred to the Lord Pirbright Hall on Pirbright Green.
Here, after a meal professionally organised by Miss Liggy Meade and the other women in the parish, proceedings were again diverted from their natural course, when Archbishop Mark called upon Fr Paul to read a number of greetings to Fr Alexis and present him with gifts that had been sent for the occasion. Among those who had sent messages were Archbishop Hilarion of Sydney, Australia & New Zealand, Protospresbyter Alexander Cherney of the Latvian Orthodox Church in this country, and Archimandrite Daniel (Toyne) of Singapore, a former novice at Brookwood. Fr Deacon Meliton Oakes came to represent H.E. Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira & Great Britain, who was at that time visiting the Church in Egypt and unable to attend, and he made a short speech. On behalf of the Harvard Road Parish in London, Fr Thomas Hardy spoke about his long acquaintance with Fr Alexis and presented him with an icon of the Mother of God, Perpetual Succour. Fr Alexander Cherney and the clergy of the ROCA diocese in Britain had given a new mitre, which was presented by Fr Paul. The Saint Edward Brotherhood gave a wooden blessing Cross, carved from rhododendron wood from the Brookwood cemetery by the Reader Sreto Duracic. Simon Teague spoke for the Brookwood parishioners, and presented an Icon of the Kazan Mother of God, flanked by St Edward the Martyr and St Alexis the Man of God, which had been hand painted by parishioner, Annie Shaw, and a rason sewn by Elena Holden. For the three Missions in the North, Birkenhead, Congleton and Stoneyhurst, Fr Paul gave a short address and an icon of the Saviour, the Good Shepherd, painted by their parishioner, Dimitri Brown. On behalf of our Serbs, Vojislav Micunovic gave a new schema, and our Greeks followed suit with Madeline Antoniazzi presenting it. Fr Stephen Platt of the Parish of the Annunciation in Oxford had very kindly been instrumental in obtaining the mitre and other things for us from Russia, and although not able to be present with us, he and his parishioners sent an icon of the Mother of God. With the blessing of Fr Andrew Phillips, Mrs Valentina Meade (née Princess Valentina Nikolaevna Galitzina) represented the Felixstowe parishioners. Vasili and Elena Starodubtsev and their family gave an icon of the Guardian Angel and St Alexis, Mrs Tatiana Yellachich gave an icon scarf, and Michael and Nadezhda Knupffer gave icons of the Resurrection and, most appropriately, of the Mother of God, the House- Builder. On the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, on the following Wednesday, Mother Vikentia and the sisters of the Convent of the Annunciation presented Fr Alexis with a Holy Land mother-of-pearl pectoral Cross. To all these kind people, and all who joined us on that day to express their goodwill - many thanks. But it must be said for the victim of these celebrations, it was a little unnerving: in church you hear a citation and are given a scroll, and there and at the meal afterwards you are surrounded by people saying unwonted nice things about you in a rather stylised form, - rather like being at your own funeral! Having finished with that part of the proceedings, we were at last able to listen to the Archbishop speaking about the rapprochement. He spoke at some length and covered the matter broadly. He then took questions from the floor and answered them. Often in such circumstances one finds only one or two people are not too shy to ask questions, but on this occasion His Grace must have answered at least twenty questions from people with a wide spectrum of views.
Except for the clearing up, the day ended at about three-thirty in the afternoon, when the Archbishop departed to return to London. On the following Tuesday, Archbishop Mark served at the Convent, with Fr Alexis and Fr Vadim Zakrevsky, assisted by Archdeacon Andronik from San Francisco and Hierodeacon Sabbas. And on the feastday itself, he served at the Harvard Road Cathedral Parish, and ordained two new readers, Alexander Shadrin and Roman Zakrevsky.
Archbishop Mark will be returning to London to celebrate the dedication festival of the Convent of the Annunciation in Willesden. He will officiate at the Vigil there on Thursday 6th April (n.s.) at 5.30 p.m. and at the Divine Liturgy on the day of the feast, Friday 7th April (n.s.) at 9 a.m. In the evening on the same day after the Akathist service, he will serve an Unction Service at Harvard Road at approximately 6.15 p.m.
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