ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Address by Archbishop Gabriel of Comana at the end of the Conference Liturgy

I thank you for your participation and concelebration, because we all concelebrate the holy Liturgy together. It was for me a wonderful experience, and I thank you, and thank the Lord, and say to you all that today, this morning, we have seen and we have felt the reality of our community together in Christ.

As we say every Sunday, let us love one another – that is what we have to learn, and that is what we have to do. The Gospel today tells us that the real Church, the holy place where we must worship, is not a building. It is the whole creation. The whole of God’s creation has the vocation to be the Church of God – that is, the place where God is with his people. In that holy place, which is the world, we all have to be priests. We have to bless and thank the Lord for the gift of life and creation. And that is what we have done this morning.

I do not say that we have no need of church buildings. We are like students. We are always learning, and we have learn to be priests of creation. We have to learn to accept the whole creation as a place of reconciliation with God – as a paradise, a Church, a holy place where God will be with us. We need some places like a church to learn that.

And now I will say something Fr Boris will like very much, because I have taken it from him: at the end of the Liturgy there is no end. There is a mission. Let us go to do in the world on Monday, and Tuesday, and every day until the next Liturgy, what we have learned and what we have done here in the church.

So we must not withdraw from the world. We have to go into the world. We have to be apostles in the world, to proclaim the Gospel of resurrection, and to be examples by our way of life – that is difficult! But that is the mission we have received. ‘We have seen the true light’ – we have found the Orthodox faith – so – noblesse oblige! Now we have to do our work – but it is beautiful work, and that is why we must let the Liturgy, like this one today, and those in your communities every Sunday, be a real feast as it was today. And thank you once again.