The first Sunday of Great Lent, called the Sunday of Orthodoxy, was celebrated in the Nativity of the Lord Cathedral in Chisinau with a Divine Liturgy officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir and the synax of priests and deacons of the holy shrine.
The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy is the day when the Orthodox Church prays particularly for the returning of all those who abandoned the right faith and fell of the Church. This day celebrates the victory of icon veneration against the iconoclasm heresy at the 7th Oecumenical Council in 787, reiterated at the Council of 843. Consequently the first Sunday of Orthodoxy celebrates the restauration of icon veneration in the Church and particular prayers.
This Liturgy has become very memorable for the young graduate of the Chisinau Academy of Theology, Petru Turcanu, who was ordained deacon and appointed to ministry in the St. Nicholas Church, Horasti village, Ialoveni region.
On this occasion, the Hierarch congratulated the young clergyman, wishing him to be a worthy witness of the Right Faith, following the example or ever commemorated fathers of the Orthodox Church, who preached the faith in Christ at the cost of their own lives, remaining steady in their creed, and bringing numerous nations to the new birth in the waters of baptismal.
After the Liturgy, a Thanks-Giving service was officiated in the Cathedral, the Metropolitan and clergy giving glory to the Lord and praying for the entire Orthodoxy, uttering prayers for the living and for the reposed in Christ.
Metropolitan Vladimir than officiated the rite of consecration of the newly picted icon of All Saints who Shone in the Land of Moldova, completed with the icons of the recently canonized St. Hierarch Gavriil Banulescu-Bodoni and Blessed Agafia of Cuselauca.
Several hundred church-goers communed in the Body and Blood of Christ, showing unity with the entire Orthodox breathing.
Also today wonder-working shrines were brought for veneration in the Cathedral – the Icon of the Theotokos Of Jerusalem (“Ierusalimitissa”) and holy relics of St. Nectarios of Egina, the Healer.
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Relations with the Mass-Media