Greetings from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia on the Occasion of the Completion of Reconstruction and the Great Blessing of St.Nicholas Cathedral in New York
17.11.2003 · English, Архив 2003
GREETINGS FROM HIS HOLINESS PATRIARCH ALEXY OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE COMPLETION OF RECONSTRUCTION AND THE GREAT BLESSING OF ST.NICHOLAS CATHEDRAL IN NEW YORK
I cordially greet you all who have worked for the restoration and reconstruction of St.Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York.
Symbolic and remarkable is the fact that the completion of the most complicated work in the Cathedral coincided with the time when the Orthodox world commemorates the centenary of the Russian bishops’ cathedral church in America. Orthodoxy, which was established in the American land through the works of the great missionary bishops, has acquired in St.Nicholas Cathedral in New York the place, where the preaching of the work of God has not stopped for a day for over a century.
The prayers of the great founders of the Cathedral – His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of All Russia, and the holy martyr Protopresbyter Alexander Khotovitsky have borne ‘good fruit’ (Lk 6:43): St.Nicholas Cathedral in New York was a reminder and testimony of the faith of the fathers and of the spiritual essence of Russian people in the most difficult years, when faith in our Motherland was persecuted with terrible cruelty. Many earthly storms have whirled past the Cathedral during the last century, but they were not fated to impede the gathering of the ‘little flock’ for whom the belonging to the faith in Christ has become the sense and meaning of their earthly life. The Russian Cathedral in the 97th street in New York has become near and dear to the people of different generations, many nationalities, different professions and social status. It has become home, where spiritual consolation from the Lord is being given to all who come to Him.
As we are now entering the renewed after the restoration church ‘with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving’ (Ps 42:4) we see the magnificence of the Cathedral, which was transformed through the labours of the artists and masters. A new prospect of its life in the second century of its existence is clear to us: our St.Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral is called as never before to become a rostrum from which the voice of the Russian Orthodox Church will be heard on the American continent. We see the Cathedral as the place where religious and secular culture of the Western world could meet with the Russian spiritual traditions.
I wholeheartedly congratulate the staff of the Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the USA, clergy and laity of St.Nicholas Cathedral in New York and all those who worked for the restoration and helped in this good deed, with the competition of the work and the Great Blessing of the Cathedral. According to the apostle, God will not ‘overlook your work and the love which you showed for His sake’ (Heb 6:10).
May the blessing of God through the prayers of St.Nicholas and the holy founders of the Cathedral in New York be with you.
+ ALEXY
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA
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