On Sunday, September 27, 2020, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present among the faithful of St. Dimitrie and the Holy Three Hierarchs Parish of Toronto. The event was occasioned by the consecration of the new iconostasis of the parish chapel. The hierarch was greeted by the faithful with bread and salt.
After the consecration of the new iconostasis, the hierarch of Canada celebrated the Divine Liturgy having beside Rev. Fr. Viorel Țencaliuc – Dean for the center of Canada and Rev. Fr. Emanuel Ionuț Țencaliuc.
In the sermon at the end of the Divine Liturgy HG Bishop Ioan Casian said:
“The church is the place where space and time are marked by the Spirit of God. The Christian views the liturgical-church rhythm as a backbone of the calendar year. Its events are seen in the shadow of the cross of Christ – said the hierarch. The Christian comes to the Church to strengthen his faith, to hear the words of Christ in the Gospel, to hear about the examples of the lives of the saints in the synaxarion or in the liturgical texts, and to contemplate through icons the gracious presence of God and His saving events.
We come to the Church to become more and more acquainted with the spirit of the kingdom of heaven and of its saints.
The church is a ship of salvation that aims to cross the swirling waves of history with the power of God’s grace and the zeal and skill of the sailors. The saints in different epochs are our models of sailors that have succeeded on their way to salvation. They remain examples for us to follow that give us a concrete picture of what it means to embody the Christian life in better or more difficult times, across geographical spaces and particular conditions. Each time and place have its opportunities for the better, but it also presents the obstacles that the evil one, human passions and unbelief raise.
Today we have a special example to keep in mind. St. Antim Ivireanul, Metropolitan of Wallachia. Although, from the birth of the Georgian descent, after a youth spent probably in captivity becomes free, learns sculpture, painting and embroidery as well as Greek, Arabic and Turkish languages. The prince and saint Constantin Brâncoveanu brings him to Wallachia, becoming its country of adoption, where he will make an enormous effort in the church and scholarship field. He set up several printing houses, published numerous books of worship and sermons in several languages, including Arabic and Georgian to help Christians there. The great merit of St. Antim Ivireanul is that he definitively introduced the Romanian language in the cult of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Didahiile remains his book of reference sermons.
He is the founder of churches, the most important being the All Saints Monastery in Bucharest (known as the Antim Monastery).
The recognition of his work is made also by his election as bishop of Râmnic (1705) and later metropolitan of Wallachia (1708). Unfortunately, due to the intrigues, he is sent for life to the Sinai monastery, where he does not arrive due to the fact that he will be killed by Turkish soldiers escorting him near Adrianople and his body being thrown into the Tundja River. “
At the end HG Bishop Ioan Casian, in recognition of the work for the arrangement of the new chapel, offered a pectoral cross to Rev. Fr. Emanuel Ionuț Țencaliuc and to Mrs. Emilia Beraru who painted the icons on the iconostasis a decorative cross. The hierach also offered to the two young ROYA members – Rareș Răducu and Macrina Aniței – an icon of the Savior Jesus Christ on the occasion of founding a new family.