His Holiness Patriarch Kirill congratulates His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah of All America and Canada on his jubilee
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia congratulated the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America on his 50th birthday. The text is given below.
Your Beatitude,
beloved Brother and Concelebrant in the Lord:
I wholeheartedly greet and congratulate you on the your 50th birthday.
On this day, I lift up an ardent prayer to God for you and remember with warmth the moments of our fraternal fellowship during your official visit to the Russian Orthodox Church, which enabled us to experience once again the spiritual and historical kindred of our two Churches.
Your jubilee is a feast not only for the Orthodox Church in America but also for the Moscow Patriarchate tied with the life of the American Orthodox by historical bonds.
May the Lord Who has place on you the heavy burden of primatial service of the Orthodox Church in America bless your primatial efforts and multiply and strengthen your God-loving flock. I prayerfully wish you good health and inexhaustible spiritual joy for many good years.
With brotherly love in the Lord,
+ KIRILL,
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia