His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Porfirije served Divine Liturgy on Friday, January 27, 2023, on the feast day of Saint Sava, the first Serbian Archbishop, at the Serbian Club in New York.
With the prayerful participation of the faithful, concelebrating were His Grace Bishop Mitrophan of Canada, Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Velibor Dzomic and Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Zivojin Jakovljević, Protonamesnik Rev. Milan Dragovic, as well as Protodeacon Dragan Radic. On that occasion, His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije delivered the following homily:
“We rejoice today because all Serbian people, regardless of where they might live throughout the world, rejoice. There are churches dedicated to Saint Sava from Vancouver to New Zealand. Saint Sava is celebrated today on every continent, first and foremost by his spiritual descendants, born in the cradle of Saint Sava, but he is also celebrated by all Orthodox people since Saint Sava is a saint of God.
We, Orthodox Christians, celebrate the saints because by glorifying them we glorify the living God, and by glorifying God we confess our true and real designation. We show the world who and what we are and what our sources are, what our goal is. All Orthodox Serbs rejoice today, but heaven also rejoices together with the Church that battles on earth, for the Church is a heavenly-earthly organism, in whom there are no dead, where no one has disappeared. Whoever was baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity and entered into the mystery of the Church has entered into the mystery of eternity, into the mystery of eternity which has its beginning here and now, and its end is endless. Its end is the Kingdom of Heaven. That's why today heaven is celebrating with us because one of the inhabitants of heaven is being celebrated, and yet also one of those who is a part of us, who is ours, moreover, who gave birth to all of us Orthodox Serbs.
We all know Saint Sava well, we know everything about him: that he was a great diplomat, that he was of imperial descent, and that he was a builder. We know that he took care of the external order of his people, but he also took care of the spiritual condition and spiritual health of his people. All that is good in our nation is good because of Saint Sava. That is why our people, in everywhere they are and whatever they are, they seek the seal of Saint Sava. Wherever he walked, he saw Sava's peaks, Sava's springs... Our people saw Saint Sava in everything. Hence, wherever we find ourselves, we could say that in the name of Saint Sava is contained our name and surname. That which Saint Sava is – that’s what we are. We wish and want to follow in his footsteps, his ways, because first of all and above all he was a man of Christ. He reconciled people who quarreled, he also reconciled his brothers. He taught them forgiveness and love. Taught them to not remember wrongs. It is important, brothers and sisters, that we here in America, in New York, know this too. Nothing comes from stubbornness! Nothing comes from vanity and pride, from self-love and persistence in the fact that we are the only ones who are always right!"
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His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Porfirje will serve Divine Liturgy tomorrow, January 28, 2023, also at the Serbian Club in New York (7254 65th Place, Glendale, New York) after which the Saint Sava Academy will follow, starting at 11:30 a.m., where the Patriarch will distribute St. Sava packages to all children.
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