Your Eminence,
merciful archpriest and spiritual father of Moldova,
Thirty-five years ago, following the election of the Holy Synod and willing to be called to this divine dignity and high step of the Hierarchy, you responded with great humility and fear of God to this call and received with obedience and holy joy also this obedience entrusted to Your Eminence by our Holy Church: the heavy task of the Hierarchy, which is the highest and most fearful step of the ecclesiastical clergy.
Having thus become a direct descendant of the Holy Apostles and a man sent by God for our country, you have endeavored during these beautiful years to serve with worthiness and justice the Savior Christ, the Eternal Archbishop, seeking to be constantly in the midst of the faithful entrusted to Your Eminence for your pastoring a living image of Him, conscious that He is the everlasting Arch-Herald who mediates our entrance to God the Father through His permanent self-giving to the Father and to men, as the New Testament presents Him to us as the Eternal Arch-Pastor: “Therefore, since we have a High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrews 4:14), for there is no more responsible calling under heaven than this.
At this uplifting moment of great spiritual joy for our entire Church, allow us to send you our warmest wishes for good health, inner peace, many years of joy and may you all live in the love and blessing of the Most Holy Trinity.
Your Eminence, you have honored this step of the episcopate to which you were called 35 years ago with great responsibility and zeal in the service of the achievement of the Kingdom of God, being totally imbued with His boundless love for the world – a love which expressed itself in the preaching of this Kingdom to “tax collectors and sinners” and which culminated in the sacrifice of His Son Who gave His life for its achievement: “That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).
Your Eminence’s deeds, springing from faith in God and eternal values, the consummate intellectual qualities which have accompanied you throughout your earthly life, are quite exceptional, which you have given us as a dowry and legacy, whether it be the wealth of the services you have performed or the multitude of the churches you have built, works by which you have truly been and remain “our spiritual father”.
Our Most Reverend Father and Metropolitan,
We all know you as a devoted servant and leader of the Church, with a special character and a sensitive heart, who suffers and prays unceasingly for the injustices of this world. Thus the term “bishop”, which comes from the Greek Επίίσκοπος and means “overseer”, speaks of the principal task which you have had and have fulfilled since your ordination to the office of archpriest: to care for the flock of Christ and to watch over it with time and without time at its helm.
Appreciating that you fulfill with great diligence your obedience as the Primate of our Church, you have had a considerable share in the act of the rebirth of Holy Orthodoxy in our country, as well as in the rebuilding and erection of dozens of monasteries and hermitages, and hundreds of churches, rightly deserving the name of their founder, thus making you a worthy successor of the great predecessors of Your Eminence, and at the same time entering into the history of church life in Moldova as a powerful personality and a prominent figure in the endeavor of our Church to serve Christ and, through Christ, the just and faithful people of these lands blessed by God with many saints and witnesses of the true faith.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ give you the strength to remain many more years at the helm of the Orthodox Church of Moldova with skill, making you a chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit, and may He endow you with the wisdom from above, which the Apostle James says beautifully that “first of all, it is pure, then peaceable, gentle, forbearing, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits, undivided, unfailing” (James 3,17).
On this serene day, full of light and memorable for Your Eminence, but also for us, we offer you our warm congratulations and we pray to the Savior Christ, the Holy Giver of life and of all good things, to continue to give you the same love and holy zeal for the Church and for the holy things, by making you a par-taker in eternity, and by keeping in mind and multiplying the gifts with which God has richly endowed you – wisdom and compassion, dedication, zeal, love, trust, faith, diligence, knowledge, skill, magnanimity, will, understanding and sacrifice.
Assuring you of all our love, obedience and all our esteem, we wish you a sincere and cordial greeting:
Long and blessed live!
Synod of the Orthodox Church of Moldova