The Shepherd, September 2009
NEW BISHOP CONSECRATED
THE RUSSIAN FAITHFUL in South America have been granted a new Bishop. Mitred Archpriest George Petrenko, who for many years has been the rector of the Holy Trinity Church at Villa Alpina and was widowed earlier in the year, was tonsured as a monk on Monday 21st July / 3rd August by His Eminence Metropolitan Agafangel, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, with Archbishop Sofrony of St Petersburg and Northern Russia standing as his monastic sponsor. He had earlier resisted being consecrated to the episcopate, but agreed seeing the pastoral need of the people in South America. He was given the name Gregory, after that great Champion of Orthodoxy, Saint Gregory Palamas, the Metropolitan of Thessalonica. On the following Saturday evening, the ceremony of the Great Edict for the new Bishop was performed at the Holy Trinity Church, during which the Bishop elect gave a very moving address, saying: “False teachers and false christs have won over almost the entire world. On account of the loss of ‘him that restraineth,’ the anointed of God, all spiritual values have changed and there do not exist today righteous people who see as evil that which the Holy Orthodox Church sees as evil. So-called ‘world Orthodoxy’ has long since entered the arena of globalization, which has as its goal the preparation of mankind to welcome the world leader and god on earth, the Antichrist. The cunning of the evil one has succeeded in rending asunder and dismantling her who stood firm in the past, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which for eighty whole years was the stronghold of Orthodoxy and the beacon of pristine and incorruptible Truth. An unbelievable temptation exploded like a bomb in the midst of our own ROCA and scattered the faithful in every conceivable direction. It is manifestly our primary concern to gather them together.” He astutely pointed out one of the greatest paradoxes of contemporary life: “The spirit of globalization is striving to gain ground in reinforcement of such disintegration. Borders between nations are disappearing, national values have been lost, and nations have been transformed into an amorphous mass. But here is the paradox: in the world, when it was divided into nations and states at war with each other, there was much greater love than there is today, when so many evil elements have been amalgamated in an external unity.” On the following day, the Sunday, the feast of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon the Healer, the episcopal consecration took place, with Metropolitan Agafangel, Archbishop Sofrony and our own Bishop Ambrose being the consecrators. To His Grace, Bishop Gregory of Sao Paulo and South America, Many years!
Readers in the British Isles may be interested to learn that, after his consecration to the episcopate in London in 1951, the future Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) moved to Brazil with his small monastic brotherhood and he was appointed to the same Holy Trinity Church, at which Fr George has served for so many years, becoming a beloved and much respected pastor there.
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