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On September 13-14, 2024, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon celebrated the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.
On Friday, September 13, His Beatitude met with faculty and staff and addressed the students at the beginning of the academic year. That evening, His Beatitude presided at the celebration of the All-Night Vigil service. The next morning, September 14, His Beatitude presided at the celebration of the hierarchical Divine Liturgy. Concelebrating with His Beatitude were Archpriest Alexander Rentel, OCA Chancellor, Archpriest Alessandro Margheritino, OCA Secretary, Archpriest Chad Hatfield, former President of the seminary, Archpriest Kirill Sokolov, Chancellor of the Diocese of the West, and chancery, seminary, and visiting clergy.
His Beatitude offered the homily, where he reflected that Christ’s Cross has changed the nature of our suffering from “something pointless, as an ultimate evil” to something “filled with meaning and the potential of transfiguration.” His Beatitude went on to say that even “death no longer appears as an end, a dark door to nowhere, or to places unknown, or to the gloomy and monotonous plains of Hades. Christ has made death a passageway into life, life everlasting, life abundant and overflowing, life incomparable to this fleeting life, life not as the world knows or gives.”
During the Divine Liturgy, His Beatitude ordained Dn. Vitaly Permiakov, the seminary’s Associate Professor of Liturgical Theology, to the holy priesthood.
Following the Liturgy, His Beatitude was warmly greeted by Dr. Ionuț-Alexandru Tudorie, interim President of the seminary. The celebrations concluded with a festive luncheon in honor of Fr. Vitaly.
