1700th birthday of St. Martin of Tours is celebrated in Budapest
On 27 December 2016, Bishop Tikhon of Podolsk, administrator of the diocese of Hungary of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Archbishop Jurai of Michalovce and Košice, Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, celebrated Divine liturgy at the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Budapest.
The divine service was celebrated to mark the 1700th birthday of St. Martin of Tours who was born in the diocese of Pannonia, now Hungary. Concelebrating were clerics of the diocese of Hungary and of the diocese of Michalovce and Košice; praying were young Orthodox Christians from the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Vienna currently on pilgrimage to the shrines in Hungary.
After the Liturgy Bishop Tikhon and Archbishop Jurai conducted a requiem litiya for the Black Sea plane crash victims.
Bishop Tikhon greeted Archbishop Jurai with the Nativity of Christ and wished him God’s help in his archpastoral care for Orthodox Christians in Slovakia.
Archbishop Jurai conveyed condolences from His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, thanked Bishop Tikhon for the joy of common prayer and greeted all the worshippers with the coming feast. He noted the importance of the example of St. Martin of Tours for Orthodox Christians not only in Hungary and Slovakia, but also in the whole world, website of the North-Eastern vicariate of Moscow reports.