In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Coming back to this Temple on this feast-day reminds me of how this community has been progressing in so many good ways and so many unexpected ways over all these years. It reminds me of how much Grace God has been pouring out on this community, as He pours out His love and His life on this community. This illustrates very much what our Saviour was saying just now about rivers of living water flowing. That has been exactly the case here. Yes, it is true that there has been a lot of hard work done by not very many people. However, what is most important is that this hard work has been motivated by love of Jesus Christ, and has been accompanied by prayer. There is a saying in Russian : “Patience and work accomplish everything”, but that saying is only half-right. Patience and work accomplish everything only when there is prayer backing it up. We can have plenty of patience, and we can work very hard. However, no matter how hard we work and how patient we are, if it is not accompanied by prayer, the work will not be properly accomplished. It is extremely important to remember this.
It is because of the faith and the prayer of the believers here for over 100 years (even though there have been many difficult times) that this community has still been here witnessing for the truth of the Orthodox Faith on this corner in n. That history of 100 years was very difficult – the beginning was very difficult. This community began, one could say, not in 1904 when this Temple was built, but probably in about 1898. In those days there was a blend between Ukrainian Catholics and Orthodox, and it was not easy to distinguish who was who. When the Ukrainian Catholics decided not to be part of the Orthodox Church, but rather to continue on their own as Uniats, then this very community became clearly an Orthodox community.
Although the beginning was difficult, it was still based on the faith of the people who loved Jesus Christ, and who were faithful to Jesus Christ in the Orthodox way. I have been told stories about how parishioners used to bring coal to church on Saturdays, Sundays and other days, because there used to be a coal stove here to warm this Temple. In those days, this parish was very, very poor. People had no money. In the 1930s, especially, it was terrible. No-one had anything. They could scarcely eat, but they still brought coal from their own homes, and shared here in order to warm this Temple in the winter-time. They pulled the coal behind them on a sleigh as they walked. Not very many people in this parish in those days had a car, I think. However, the people were faithful. They believed in Jesus Christ, and they lived their Orthodox Christian Faith. It is because of this faithfulness and this witness that it is possible for us to be worshipping here together.
In this Temple we can see also the fruit of the Holy Spirit in two other significant ways. First, there is the reappearance of little children in this parish these days. It was so touching to my heart to see, when I was standing in the middle of the Temple, a child kissing the Cross on the analoy. I see this in other places, but I have not seen it here for a long time. Such children’s piety is so beautiful to see : children kissing Crosses on the furniture of the Temple. It is such a beautiful thing. Many of you probably did the same thing when you were two or three. It is a wonderful thing to see.
The other thing that is beautiful to see in this Temple is precisely the fulfilment and the repetition of what we heard in the Epistle today in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles : about the day when the Holy Spirit was poured out in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit gave the preaching of the Gospel to all sorts of people in all sorts of different languages. Likewise, in this Temple, we do not use only one language. This is a church in which many languages are spoken by the people who come here. This is the normal way for the Orthodox Church to be. Even when some parishes want to be only one language, the Lord seems to say : “No, you cannot just be limited to one language”, and He sends people who speak other languages. He makes them loosen up, because we have to be reaching out.
Jerusalem in those days could be compared to Toronto today. It was a city to which people came from every different sort of nation. All sorts of people were coming to Jerusalem from various parts of the Roman Empire to do business, and almost every language in the Roman Empire was heard (and from beyond it also). Included in the list was Persian (Persia in those days was not part of the Roman Empire). The point is that all these different languages were being spoken there. When the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, not only the Twelve, but also the Seventy and others were given to speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all these languages. The people were shocked that these relatively uneducated people were able to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all these different languages.
The Orthodox Faith has been spread around the world precisely on that principle. As the Apostle Paul would soon remind the others, this phenomenon clearly demonstrated that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was to be shared with everyone in the whole world. That is why in the whole world to this day we have Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Greek, Syrian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Egyptian, and we have to say, Japanese, North American, West European, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, and Chinese Orthodox Christians (the Chinese Orthodox Church has returned to life now). In Canada, we have parishioners in some churches who are Chinese, Japanese, Philippino, and African. I forgot Korea, where there are many thousands of Orthodox Christians, and Africa, which is one of our biggest mission fields. Apart from the original Ethiopians, Eritreans, Tigrayans and Sudanese, there are now Ghanaian, Nigerian, Congolese, Angolan, Ugandan, Kenyan, Zimbabwean, Madagascan and South African Churches. For instance, in 1984, a very small Greek-speaking parish in Madagascar that was dying, called for a priest to come and serve them. An Australian Orthodox priest went to them and began to convert the people of Madagascar amongst whom they lived. The dying Greek parish became a full parish and multiplied itself on the island of Madagascar, so that there is a whole diocese now with a bishop, and 22,000 believers. This is the increase of the Orthodox Faith.
We have to remember, too, that the Orthodox Churches persecuted in communist-dominated countries for seventy years have also been completely revived. Here are two examples. Last November, I was in Tbilisi, Georgia for the consecration of their new cathedral. It is the biggest church in the country, and I have to say, has a better design than Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. The territory of the two Temples is more or less the same, but because of the way that Christ the Saviour Cathedral was designed, there are big spaces taken up with huge columns and other things (because it was designed around 1864, and built in a different way). When it was rebuilt, it was built exactly according to the original model. Although the big stones that it was built with in those days were replaced by concrete, they felt that they had to make it exactly as it was.
The cathedral in Tbilisi is not limited by that, because there never was in Georgia such a big church before. Therefore, they were able to build it with modern concrete and reinforced bar style from the beginning, and it is very open. They are able to use this territory for accommodating people. There was one choir of 500 children at the time of the consecration. It was amazing – they were so loud that they were almost deafening when they were singing. There must have been more than 1,000 people singing all together amongst all the choirs up above on the balcony. The Temple can hold about 15,000 people but there were not so many allowed in the Temple on that day because the president was coming. It was very odd actually, because I think that there were that day only about 8,000 people allowed in the Temple. There were about 30,000 people outside who were complaining that they were not allowed in (security is security). It is so beautiful to see the love of the people and their desire to be in the Temple.
A week and three days ago, I was in Christ the Saviour Sobor in Moscow for Ascension. I was serving with Patriarch Ilia, Patriarch Aleksy and 109 other bishops. The cathedral was full of people, which means that there were probably around eight or nine thousand people. I was talking to a priest afterwards, and he said to me that when they built this Temple just five years ago, they did not know how they were going to build and sustain it. No-one is living in the center of Moscow : it is all offices, and government offices next door to the Kremlin, and then there is the Moscow River. This priest said that now, for some reason, people are going to this cathedral all the time. Every Sunday, every feast-day, the Temple is full of people. Thousands and thousands of people are going to church there. Now, he said, the Russian Orthodox Church has so many bishops that the Temple is too small to hold them when they are assembled together. I was there for the consecration of that cathedral, and there were 208 bishops serving. There was no room in the Altar (the Altar of that Temple is bigger than this church). With the Holy Table and everything, there was no room, and the bishops were bumping into each other. It was like standing squashed in a very tight church.
The Church is renewed, and renewing. In Russia, they are building churches faster than they can actually manage economically. At the end of the communist era, there were only about fifteen or twenty churches open in Moscow. Now they have opened, rebuilt, and built some new ones – up to 750 churches. However, they still have a long way to go because, before the Revolution, there were more than 1,000 churches in the city of Moscow. In the Moscow region, outside the city, there are already more than 1,000 churches opened (and they are building more). This is to demonstrate how the Church is being renewed by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on these countries. These are just two little examples. I can give you more, but we have other things to do today.
The Grace of the Holy Spirit has been poured out on our Church (although we do not see it so well in Canada, sometimes). I see it in this parish because of the renewal of life in this place, to God’s glory. Here there is a renewal of people’s lives, the strengthening of their faith. God is working very much with our Church because we have a lot of work to do.
Glory to God because of His love for us. Glory to God that He pours out His love upon us in such a way. Glory to God that He is renewing our life. Glory to God that He is multiplying our witness here in n. Glory to God that He is also using this community to be an instrument of His unity for the whole Orthodox Church. Glory to God that He works with us in ways that we do not understand, and cannot understand. Glory to God that He pours out the Grace of the Holy Spirit upon us, and renews us.
Let us remember to give glory to God for everything. Let us try to have the eyes to see where and how He is working amongst us : to see the change and improvement in each other’s lives. Let us support each other prayerfully in the renewal of our lives, and let us encourage each other in hope, because God is with us. Glory be to Him for all things : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.