On March, the 9th the Annual Diocese Meeting took place at St. Mary’s Parish Hall. According to a good tradition the meeting was preceded by a Liturgy at St. Mary’s, the Holy Nativity of Mother of God’s Church at Nisku.

Father Dean of the patriarchal parishes lead the service, with the deacon Andrei Boldireff, the rector of “Orthodox IX” parishes archpriest Evheniy Protsenko, the rector of “Orthodox V” parishes priest Alexios Surayev, archpriest Vitaliy Manoli and deacon John Russel co-serving.

After the dismissal f. Igor greeted the clergy and the people – the representative of the parish councils and the parishioners of St. Barbara Cathedral, ‘Orthodox 5’ and ‘Orthodox 9’ Parishes and congratulated farther Deacon Andrew Boldireff with his 70-th birthday, announcing the Patriarchal Certificate of merit that was issued to him on this occasion for the many years of faithful service; congratulated farther Alexius with his namesday and patronal saint; farther Evheniy with the 19th anniversary of his priesthood and mentioned that he was glad to serve that day the liturgy with so many people and a whole council of clergy attending, as it was the 22nd anniversary of his ordination by His Holyness Patriarch Kirill in Smolensk.

After the l liturgy the president of Orthodox 9 parishes, that was hosting the diocese meeting this year, invited people to a lunch to St. Mary’s hall, what the meeting took place.

At the beginning of the meeting the President of Patriarchal Parishes invited the meeting to have a minute of silence for the departed faithful servers, elders and leaders of the Patriarchal Parishes – James Shemchuk and Fred Piwarchuk.

The Dean read the Bishop’s addressing of His Grace Matthew, Bishop of Sourozh, Interim Administrator of the Patriarchal parishes in Canada to the meeting:

“Dear Fathers, brothers and sisters – participants of the Annual Meeting of the Patriarchal Parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in Canada, let me greet all of you on behalf of His Holiness Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia with Cheesefare Saturday and the coming Holy Lent.

Our meeting today has gathered representatives of many parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in Canada to discuss the actual problems of the church life, to share parish life experience and to make plans for the year 2019.

For the Russian Orthodox Church in North America the present Meeting is important from the perspective of development of the Orthodox Christianity on the American continent and continuous work on the promotion of the traditional ethical principles.

As you well know the Russian Orthodox presence in North America has a long history, beginning in the 18th century with the arrival of the monks of the Valaamo Monastery, including the first American Orthodox Saints Herman and Juvenaly, to the shores of America and the subsequent establishment of a Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States and later in Canada. This year marks the 225th anniversary of the Valaamo mission which is going to be widely celebrated in Russia, the United States and in Canada.

Our meeting also takes place in the year marking the 140th anniversary of repose of a faithful son of the Russian Orthodox Church and outstanding missionary named the Apostle of America for his missionary work – St. Innocent of Moscow. St. Innocent began his missionary journey in 1823. Still a married man, Priest Ioann Veniaminov, he was the only one who was not afraid of facing difficulties and set off with his family to the remote North American continent to illumine local people. And the Lord rewarded him not only with seven children of his own but also with dozens of thousands of children in spirit whom he illuminated with the light of the faith of Christ. After his wife’s death, Archpriest Ioann took monastic vows in 1840 with the name Innocent and the episcopal rank, while continuing to serve the mission of illuminating peoples in North America. He devoted almost half a century to the apostolic labours in the severe conditions of the North with its great perils for one’s life. St. Innocent was aware of the need for episcopal ministry in the new missionary territories on which an invisible building of the Church of Christ was erected and for this reason in 1870, through his petition, Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska was opened which later had its special development in Canada.

St Innocent’s labours were continued in the end of the XIX century by Archbishop Tikhon (Bellavin), who later became the Patriarch of Moscow and who personally did a lot for the Orthodox faith in Canada and who a century ago in the hardest years after the Revolution in Russia preached: «We who belong to the Church are called upon to bear witness to the fact that it is meaningless to build up the life of the human person and society without God». His Holiness Patriarch Kirill added recently to this. «We will be able to resist such attitudes only if we keep in our hearts a living and sincere faith – a faith which is active through love (cf. Gal 5.6). This faith will be our means of forever confessing Christ the Saviour and the foundation of our everyday affairs that go beyond the observance of ritual».
The Patriarchal Parishes in Canada had many bishops who were faithful to these words of the Patriarchs and who laboured fervently in the land of Canada, including my predecessor Bishop Job who was the administrator of the Patriarchal parishes for more than 13 years.

Today I ask for the blessing of the Lord for our assembly, for a fruitful discussion of our church life issues and call on the participants of our meeting that we, members of the Russian Orthodox Church through our today’s gathering unite around the very simple common values of the Holy Gospel and adopt them to our everyday life with the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God and all the saints who shone forth in the land of Canada.”

The presentation of the annual reports and their discussion followed, that was constructive, friendly and helpful.

One of the elders of the Parishes – John Prokopuk was elected as a new Treasurer of the Patriarchal Parishes in Canada.

The meeting ended with a common prayer.