His beatitude Irinaios Patriarch of the Holy city of Jerusalem and all Palestine

HIS BEATITUDE IRINAIOS
PATRIARCH OF THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM AND ALL PALESTINE

Your Beatitude, the Most Blessed Primate of the Holy Orthodox Church
of Jerusalem and dear Brother and Concelebrant at God’s Throne,
beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ,

With spiritual joy the whole Russian Orthodox Church has received the blessed news that Your Holiness have been elected Primate of the oldest Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and the most important intercessor for the whole Christian world at the Lord’s Sepulcher.

By the work of Divine Providence manifested in your having being elected in council, you ascend now to the glorious primatial throne of the Mother of all Churches. Prayerfully sharing in this remarkable event in the life of the beloved Church of Jerusalem, we cry out in the fullness of our heart: “Hail, O Zion the holy, the Mother of Churches, the Abode of God!” (Sunday Stichera for “Lord, I have cried…”, Tone 8).

As a successor to St. James, the Lord’s brother and the first Bishop of Jerusalem, you have been installed by the Lord for the primatial ministry at a hard time of trials when the Holy Land has come to witness bitterness and bloodshed and when those weak in the spirit need a special support and the faith-asserting word from the Primate and pastor. However, God is faithful to His promises, and the fact that the widowed Orthodox Church of Jerusalem has acquired a new Primate at this fateful time has vividly revealed to us the ineffable love of God and asserted the faithful in the inviolable truth that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

The holy Church of Jerusalem, the cradle of all the Churches, which has zealously preserved the old shrines of the Holy City with its Garden of Gethsemane, Golgotha, Life-giving Sepulcher and Zion Upper Room, has always exemplary in the strict observance of the patristic tradition and church canons, pure faith, fraternal cooperation and mutual understanding among the Local Orthodox Churches. In these days of joy for the holy Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and for the whole Orthodox world, we remember with love your predecessors at the oldest and glorious throne of St. James, the Most Blessed Patriarchs Benedictos and Diodoros who zealously served the cause of asserting Orthodox faith in the earthly land of our Lord and Saviour. It is through their efforts that the time-honoured friendly relations between the Orthodox Churches of Russia and Jerusalem could not be severed or even shaken by various historical circumstances and hardships. Eternal and grateful memory be to them!

We believe that continuing these efforts you, dear Brother beloved in the Lord, in following the tradition of the established relations between our sister Churches, will help by all possible means to strengthen and develop them through mutual spiritual support lived up in lively sharing and mutual understanding.

By God’s blessing and through election by the Plenitude of the Church, Your Beatitude has been given the crozier of governing the Holy Church of the Lord’s life-giving Sepulcher, and from our brotherly heart we wish that with the grace-giving help of the All Holy Spirit you will be successful in your primatial work to govern the numerous faithful entrusted to your care by God on their way to eternal salvation.

On behalf of the archpastors, pastors and lay people of the Russian Orthodox Church, we greet Your Beatitude on the occasion of your enthronement and congratulate the episcopate, clergy and laity of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem on the ascension to the primatial throne of such a prominent and worthy hierarch who is distinguished by many gifts of God and merits which will allow him to perform so important and glorious a service.

May our Lord Jesus Christ, Who now enkindles a new candle in the apostolic candlestick, help Your Beatitude by His grace in your work and concern for the good of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and her faithful children. Many the lofty service of Your Beatitude that you have received in the Lord (Col. 4:17) be a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God (Phil. 4:18). We pray that the Lord may strengthen Your Beatitude and send blessed success to you in your primatial ministry and peace and prosperity to the Holy Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.

“Blessed is he who come in the name of the Lord” (Lk. 13:35)
With brotherly love in the Lord for Your beloved Beatitude,

+ ALEXY,
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA