THE STUDENTS OF THE PATRIARCHAL SCHOOL OF ZION VISIT HIS BEATITUDE THE PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM
On the morning of Saturday, May 28/June 10, 2023, the cadets of the Patriarchal School of Zion, graduates, seniors and other students, visited His Beatitude on the occasion of the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer vacation.
In the context of this visit, the students thanked His Beatitude for the beneficial things they enjoyed at the School during their studies with the following address:
“Your Beatitude Father and Master,
after we have navigated the sea of secondary education with toil and hardship, we stand before You with filial respect to thank You.
About 6 years ago, leaving our family home, which gave us a climate of love for the “living” but also the “living well”, we moved to the philanthropy of the spiritual family of the Patriarchal School, which operates under the paternal protection and love of You, to complete our circular education.
God’s providence defined our Holy Sepulchre School as a stage of virtues and knowledge. However, the difficulties of adaptation we faced, combined with the revolutionary concerns of our adolescence, often made us think of abandoning this beautiful struggle to return to our homeland with wounded memories.
But our victorious Resurrected Lord protected us from such an impulse and bestowed upon us His perfect gifts through You, Your Beatitude, the guardian of the Holy Light. In the few years that we lived near You, we gained our opinion that You are the Patriarch who knows how to love and knows how to sacrifice for His children.
Your patriarchal filial piety to assign as our Schoolmaster the Reverend Elder Dragoman Mattheos confirms “the truth of the word”. Thanks to the multi-talented Fr. Mattheos and Your help, the School was renovated in terms of buildings and upgraded in quality, with the selection of teachers and support staff, who worked hard to impart good morals to us and equip us with wise and practical knowledge to move forward hopefully in our difficult and demanding times.
In the face of Father Mattheos, Your Beatitude, we saw Your sacrificial love for us. As our guardian angel, he instructed us, educated us, protected us and guided us to good.
We thank You, Father and Master, for all Your blessings, spiritual and material.
Your respected face will be like a guiding star, which will always lead us to life in Christ and we will invoke Your Holy Sepulchre prayers and wishes to overcome the manifold difficulties of our lives.
We promise You that we will honour with words and deeds the identity of the Holy Sepulchre student, keeping in our hearts the beautiful Holy Sepulchre experiences.
We wish you for many more decades, with unshakable health and forward-looking boldness, to defend the rights of our Patriarchate, as until now, without cowering before the principles and powers of “the ruler of this century”.
Many returns to you!”
His Beatitude thanked the Managing Director and the teachers for the good operation of the School and praised the students for their performance in accordance with the data of the program of the Ministry of Education of Greece and the Patriarchate in anticipation of their inclusion of their free will in the Brotherhood in due course and wished them a good holiday, a good return and good success in the special entrance exams for foreigners to the University Faculties.
From Secretariat-General