Your Beatitude! Your Eminence, Reverend fathers, brothers and sisters! It is with a special feeling that I stepped on the land of ancient Tavria, on the Crimean land, from where the orthodox faith spread throughout our land.
The Orthodox faith was brought here by my heavenly patron, Holy and Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril. It was his first missionary journey; it was a trial of his missionary ability. It was here that our people heard of the Orthodox faith for the first time, it is here, in almost 120 years after the sermon of St Cyril the Holy Prince Vladimir, the Enlightener of our people, was baptized. This ancient land is steeped in glory, this ancient land also bears wounds of history, which has not always been kind to this place – there were wars, human sufferings, and here the power of spirit and orthodox faith manifested itself.
I came to Crimea to pray with you, to ask God that He granted all of us peace, firmness of souls and was our hope, that the protecting veil of the Mother of God covered us.
It is with awe that I touched the relics of the Holy Hierarch Luke, who was almost our contemporary. I had no chance to meet with him myself, but I have heard of him much from those who concelebrated with Vladyka Luke and knew him well. It was really an amazing Archpastor, who combined the church ministry and the service to the science, who combined the ability to work in the secular system under conditions of the atheist state and to be at the same time the Archpastor of the Church. The example of the Holy Hierarch Luke teaches us to find the way out of the seemingly desperate situation, how to be peaceful and calm and to organize one’s earthly living without compromising with one’s conscience.
The Holy Hierarch Luke was that very person: it seemed that the external circumstances suppressed him but he never broke down under this pressure and preserved his internal power, because this power drew on the Orthodox faith. He felt the God’s presence in his life, therefore he was never afraid of anything, and there was nothing he tried to avoid, but performed his ministry in the world, with courage and with love of people. Today the Holy Hierarch Luke is a great and lightsome example for many of us.
I am happy to visit the Crimean land, which has been decorated by hundreds of churches recently, the monasteries appeared and a large number of clergy perform their ministry here. I am glad to be among the people of God who keep ward of the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, of the unity of the spiritual heritage of the Holy and Equal-to-the Apostles prince Vladimir.
I feel special joy because I travel with His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who consolidates Orthodoxy and keeps unity of our Church by his own example, performing pastoral ministry among the people having different views and political convictions, different understanding of the past and present.
I’d like to extend my hearty gratitude to You, Your Eminence Metropolitan Lazarus, because it is much through You Archpastoral efforts that here the Orthodox Church is being established, spread, fortified and decorated. It is with joy that I’m going to visit the construction site of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which had been once a symbol of orthodoxy in Crimea and then was destroyed.
I came to this historical Cathedral, where the Holy Hierarch Luke performed his ministry every time I visited Simferopol. I remember the episodes of my youth: a great number of people prayed here, it was hot and stuffy and cramped there, the people then shed themselves with water, but did not leave the church, because it was an island of salvation, a special place where the people confessing their faith could pray together and participate in the Sacraments of the Church together.
Today there is a woman’s monastery now, and I have some special words for those who now live and work here – to You, Mother Superior and the nuns. You are the inheritors of the great possession: the place where the Holy Hierarch Luke worked and where our pious people prayed, keeping faith in their hearts in the difficult life circumstances.
As a keepsake of the visit of this abode and this famous church I’d like to make a present of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign. Praying unto it remember our today’s common prayer, our meeting, remember Your patriarch in your prayers. Let the Heavenly Queen cover you with Her veil, let this wonderful image of the Mother of God with the hands uplifted to God calls all of you to fervent prayer to the Lord, since the “Sign” is an image of the praying Theotokos. She was the Mother of the Savior and at the same time a great woman of prayer, giving all of us an example of the prayer, of daring intercession before God, an example of maternal love.
I would also like that when I leave this church the clergymen distribute these small icons of the Holy and Equal-to-the Apostles Prince Vladimir among all of you and the people outside the church as souvenirs of my visit. Through the prayers of the Holy and Equal-to-the Apostles Prince Vladimir may the Lord keep the Orthodox faith here, in the Crimea, and throughout the territory of the historical Rus, in the territory that we used to perceive as the Holy Rus. May God’s blessing rest upon all of you. Amen.
