Metropolitan of all America and Canada: Kiev Lavra continues to inspire us

"The burden and trials of the persecuted Orthodox Church in the twentieth century in the Soviet Union have never been a distant and alien history for the Orthodox Church in America. Our lively connection with Kiev and Kiev-Pechersk Lavra continues to inspire us," the message says.

He mentions the Orthodox hierarch and the priests who linked the history of our country and America: "Father Alexander Khotovitsky, who worked in the United States as a church builder and assistant hierarch, joined the congregation of saints and martyrs who died in the death machine in the 1930s. Father Alexander was born in Kremenets (Volyn), and therefore is one of the direct links for the Orthodox Church in America with priests and missionaries from Ukraine."

The message also mentions another zealous missionary, father John Kochurov, the builder of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, who was killed in Tsarskoe Selo near Petrograd in October 1917, and a native resident of Kremenets, Metropolitan Leonty (Turkevich), First Hierarch of the American Metropolia from 1950 to 1965.

The Metropolitan is convinced that it is worthy and righteous "to remember and honor the memory of Metropolitan Vladimir, as well as a host of martyrs and confessors in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries that fell prey before the communist ideology and militant atheism."

"When in 1988 the first Divine service was performed in the Lavra on the occasion of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus, the representative of our Church was a part of this festive liturgy. Over the past thirty years since then, we have happily witnessed the dynamic new life of the Lavra. We are also following with sadness and dismay the ongoing war in the east of Ukraine," writes the head of the Orthodox Church in America.

The message ends with the words of support, "Today we are grateful to God that our representative is with you to convey to you our warm and fraternal greeting, our love, assuring you of our prayers for you and asking for your prayers for us and for the Orthodox Church in America and its mission in North America."

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