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Enthronement
Speech
By
H.E. Ambrosios Metropolitan of Korea
(
July 20th 2008)
Your Eminence Ireneos, Archbishop of
Crete, representing His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew;
Your Eminences;
Beloved Presbyters and Deacons;
Your Excellencies;
Honorable President of HUFS
University,
Dear Colleagues and Students of HUFS;
Beloved Sisters and Brothers in the
Lord,
¡°Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant
mercy¡±( 1 Peter 1:3) has turned his regard on me and has appointed me, through
the Holy Synod of our Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan of Korea in order
to minister to the polite and God-loving Korean Orthodox faithful and to work
for the further spreading of Orthodoxy in the ¡°Land of the morning calm¡±.
First,
at this sacred moment, I kneel down and
venerate the Holy and Great Church of Christ and being overwhelmed by feelings
of gratitude I kiss the honorable right hand of our Ecumenical Patriarch and of
the members of the Holy Synod for the honor they have bestowed upon me and the
trust they have shown to me.
I
would also like to extend my deep thanks to His Eminence Ireneos, Archbishop of
Crete, representing H.A.H. the Ecumenical Patriarch, who, despite his heavy
schedule, went through the trouble of coming to Korea in order to participate
in the enthronement ceremony; I also thank him for his kind and loving words.
His ¡°love. faith and service¡± (Rev. 2:19) towards all people and especially to
the youth will always be a guiding light for me and the diakonia I am undertaking today.
Further
to, I wish to thank from the bottom of my heart His Eminence Soterios,
Metropolitan of Pisidia for the precious lessons he has taught me through his
holy life, his Christ-centered teaching and his long experience throughout the
past 10 years of my diakonia here in Korea.
What can I possibly say about his sacrificial love and his endless
patience at times of trial and affliction during the 33 years of his service in
Korea? What can one admire first? His zeal and diligence? His selfless
dedication to the Church and his humility, which finally led him to his
resignation, despite my repeatedly begging him not to go through it? I am quite certain that they will all be
accounted for in the history of the Church, and above all, they have already
been written ¡°in the book of life¡±. Time
allows me to add one thing only: that I will remain his humble collaborator and
a devoted child of his until the end.
My
heartfelt thanks go to the Bishops (names)¡¦.
Last
but not least, I extend my warm thanks
to all our Korean Orthodox faithful and all those Orthodox brothers and
sisters of other nationalities who
reside in Korea, as well as all those who came from overseas. They honor and
strengthen me with their presence and prayers.
Finally I wish to humbly thank my elderly parents, my brothers, my
relatives, my friends and all those who assist our mission work here in Korea,
and who, despite their absence, they are definitely present in spirit. I thank
them all.
Having
concluded the first part of my speech, please allow me to make a public
confession. Ever since I first met the
Orthodox Korean faithful in 1995, I felt a deep love for all of you. The strong spiritual bonds, which developed
little by little between us, made me feel and consider you as my own family;
and because of this I made the decision in 1998 to live permanently in Korea
and to die here. You have been and you will always be in my heart, because
there is only one ¡°entrance¡± in my heart. Anyone who goes through it, cannot
possibly escape it, as there is no ¡°exit¡±.
My beloved,
Being
elected as metropolitan to any given Metropolis, it is always a ¡°cross¡± and a
¡°grave¡±. It is a ¡°cross¡±, because a
metropolitan is commissioned to bear patiently the heavy load of the spiritual,
pastoral and administrative responsibilities of his flock. And it is also a ¡°grave¡± because he must bury
himself daily and abandon his own life, ¡°with its passions and desires¡± (Gal.
5:24).
This
is the dimension through which I see and feel my election as Metropolitan of
Korea. And because neither the cross nor the grave are pleasant or desirable
things, that¡¯s why I tried as much as I could to avoid and prevent it from
happening, though to no avail.
It is true, that most of the times,
¡°man¡¯s volition does not coincide with God¡¯s command¡±. So, I humbly accepted God¡¯s will, as it was
expressed through the decision of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch and
the Sacred Synod around Him. And today, with shaken legs I have ascended the
Episcopal throne wishing to promise you a humble prelatic diakonia in
co-operation with all of you. I mention
the word ¡°co-operation¡± because I consider it a very important element for the
success and progress of any given task; even more so, when it has to do with
the work of the Church. If we could take
a moment to think that the Almighty God co-operates with humans for the
creation of another human being, and that our salvation is the result of the
co-operation between the divine and human factor, then we will realize that all
of us who serve in the Church we must co-operate with each other. Everyone¡¯s participation is a must in this
work, without any exception, because the testimony for the Kingdom of God to
the contemporary world is the responsibility of the Church, the Clergy and the
laity as a whole.
Now,
at this sacred moment, please allow me to express to your love some fundamental
thoughts, which I strongly believe should become a reference point and to
determine our future diakonia in the Church of Korea.
It
is a well-known fact that in today¡¯s world a spirit of confusion prevails in
all levels. As a result, long held principles and revered institutions, such as
family, morality, human communication, respect for life, the protection of the
environment e.t.c., have all been subverted.
In spite of this, there is a longing in a large part of our society for
truth and genuineness, and see them as a
means to overcome the present social crisis. In this reality, with its negative
and positive aspects, the Orthodox Church holds a specific view and offers a
salutary life proposal.
Here
in the beautiful country of Korea, there are many Christians who are looking
for something different from the usual Christian trends, but they do not know
how to go about and find it. There are also millions of our countrymen who do
not belong to any religion at all and they still seek the ¡°unknown God¡± (Acts
17:23)! We, as members of the Orthodox
Church, who has the privilege to be the continuity of the ancient Church, are
obligated to carry the torch of the genuine Orthodox teaching and ethos to all
those who long for ¡°the kingdom of God and His justice¡± (Matth. 6:33).
Therefore,
I believe that our diakonia and testimony in today¡¯s Korean society ought to be
focused on the following three major points, which the non-Orthodox Christians
were deprived of after the great schism between the Eastern and Western Church:
Point
1: Bearing witness to the Orthodox
treasure of our patristic tradition.
That
is, to make Koreans familiar with the Orthodox patristic teachings which are
widely unknown. The precious spiritual treasure that was bestowed to us by the
Holy Fathers is of inestimable value. The Holy Fathers led numerous people to
the Kingdom of Heaven through their holy life and wise writings, throughout the
centuries. Their hermeneutical works of the Holy Bible constitutes a first
class spiritual food, able to feed the readers and lead them eventually to the
truth. If these writings become accessible to the Koreans, they then will not
have to strive on their own in order to understand the redemptive words of the
Holy Bible, nor will they run the risk of ¡°departing from the faith¡± (1 Tim.
4:1) due to subjective interpretations.
Point
2: Bearing witness to the Orthodox liturgical tradition.
The
Orthodox Church has preserved an immense liturgical treasure, in which one can
trace the beginnings of early Christian worship as well as the liturgical
tradition of a two thousand-year span. When someone lives within the rich
Orthodox liturgical life, he/she receives, through the holy Sacraments, the
grace of God; he is fed with the ¡°Bread of life¡± and has heavenly, mystical
experiences. This liturgical treasure, i.e. the liturgical texts of hymnography
as well as the liturgical practice, must first of all be experienced by
ourselves and then help spread it to the Koreans, so that more of our brothers
will be able to worship the true God in an Orthodox manner.
Point
3: Bearing witness to the treasure of
the Orthodox spiritual tradition.
Apart
from the patristic and liturgical treasures, the Orthodox Church is proud in
the Lord for its spiritual treasures which focus on the acquisition of the Holy
Spirit, by leading a life in Christ, and on the unity of man with God (theosis). The Orthodox Church, having kept the
tradition of the ancient Church uninterrupted,
has been able to sustain all the elements that comprise the spiritual
life in Christ. Nowadays, many non-Orthodox Christians all over the world
recognize the uniqueness of Orthodox spirituality and seek to approach it. To
all those seekers we are obliged to offer them, through our life and words, the
testimony of the genuine Orthodox spiritual life. We must strive to make known to the
Christians of other denominations the roots and sources of the undivided Church
of the first millennium Thus, we will contribute significantly towards the
unity of the Christians, so that our Lord¡¯s prayer: ¡° that they all may be one¡±
(John 17:21) will be realized.
I
am quite convinced that the work of spreading these precious Orthodox elements
to the contemporary Korean society, both in the South and in the North, cannot
be accomplished by one individual only.
I do believe, however, that it can be realized with the grace of God and
with the co-operation of all of us. Therefore, as I am concluding my speech, I
wish to address each one of you with an invitation to prayer and an invitation
to co-operation. That means, each member of our Church, young or old, children
or adults, men or women, educated or uneducated, is invited to join in this sacred cause for
the spreading of Orthodoxy in Korea.
Come, my dear brothers and sisters, and let us all together, Koreans,
Russians, Americans and any other Orthodox who reside in this beautiful, hospitable
country of Korea, co-operate with faith, love and unity as one Church under the
homophoro of our Ecumenical Patriarch.
This way, we will have the blessing of God and we will see the coming of
God¡¯s kingdom ¡°within us¡± being
realized. So be it!
¡°Finally,
brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live
in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you¡± (2 Cor. 13:11). Amen.
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