Ordination in the church of the Holy Apostles in Topcider
His Holiness Porfirije, the Serbian Patriarch officiated the Holy Hierarchical Liturgy in the church of Holy Apostles of Peter and Paul in Topcider, on 7 November 2021 (phоto gallery).
The Patriarch was concelebrated by Their Graces Bishops Nikodim of Dalmatia and Jerotej of Toplica. After the Great Entrance, Patriarch Porfirije ordained reader Srboljub Ostojic to the rank of deacon.
Interpreting the reading part of the Holy Gospel, Patriarch Porfirije taught the clergy and the faithful about the meaning of the miracle described in the Gospel of Luke: "Nain means beauty and life. It was a place of freshness, a place where people from Nazareth came for a kind of rest and respite. And here, in that place of life, in that place of beauty and freshness, we see one dramatic picture, we see contrast. On the one hand, the sad procession is going to bury the widow's child, which is already due to the fact that the widow has already gone through grief, through grief because her husband died. And now, the son who was her consolation and probably some kind of hope for a future life, and he died. In that place, therefore, which is called Nain, the place of life, in the place of beauty and freshness, regardless of the fact that the external is so woven, the human reality is the reality of death, the reality of transience, the reality of sorrow, pain and sighing. On the other hand, we see the Lord who has his disciples, apostles, and who is the source of life, who testifies and preaches life, and not only biological life that has its beginning and end, not only life that is the experience of the transient. holy, he preaches, testifies and gives eternal life. "
"The apostle and evangelist Luke wanted to show the historical dimension of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, to show that the Son of God, our faith in him, is not simply some abstract theory, idea, ideology, philosophy, and even if it were the best possible, it would only be one of the existing human creations, one of the philosophies and anthropocentric sciences, the sciences of man. The apostle and evangelist Luke wants to show that nothing is from the life of Christ's fiction and that there is nothing that awaits us somewhere in the next future century and in the world, and that it is not available to us humans as a foretaste, but true and true reality. to which we can only think, but a reality in which we can and must and are called to participate ", explained Patriarch Porfirije the reason why the Apostle Luke attached importance to presenting the historical facts that the Lord Christ did.
"This event, in which the Lord awakens from a dream, calling death a dream in other places in the Gospel, wants to show that no matter where we live, whether that place is fresh and whether that place is called a place of life. , themselves, by themselves, by their human forces. we are just a sad procession that sends us out of this world one by one ", Patriarch pointed out, emphasizing:
"On the other hand - the love of God, on the other hand - God Himself who is love, He came and remained with us and among us as the Source of life, as the Bearer of life, as the Giver of life. Above all, by the power of His love, He conquers death. He overcomes death not only as a biological fact and not only as a consequence of the sin of alienating man from God, his autonomy, he thinks that he can do without God who took him to death. God overcomes death not only as a result of sin, but overcomes death as transience, as reality, makes of what has created a capacity that can participate in the uncreated and thus become paradoxical, superficial, superficial, infinite. It seems to man, who has his beginning and therefore by his nature and his end, that he can be infinite both forward and backward, and towards the beginning and towards the end. It makes a person that everything that is logical to him, that is rational, that is thus limited, becomes super logical, superstitious and therefore unlimited. "
