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DEACON’S ORDINATION AT THE PATRIARCHATE

The ordination to Deacon of Monk Dositheos Konidis was observed during the All-night Vigil at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Tuesday 22 December 2021/ 4 January 2022.

Monk Dositheos, with passport name Elias Konidis, came to Jerusalem and the Patriarchate as a novice Monk from the Monastery of his monastic training and was tonsured a Monk.

Having been tested at the Central Monastery of the Patriarchate in the appointed to him duties, he was found worthy to be ordained as a Deacon by the decision of the Holy and Sacred Synod.

The ordination was incorporated in the Divine Liturgy according to the Typikon Order of the Church. Before the ordination, the ordaining Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias admonished Father Dositheos regarding the importance and holiness of the Hierodeacon’s Office as follows:

“Dear Subdeacon Dositheos,

Great and honourable indeed is this day for you, when by the holy decision of our much-caring Father and Patriarch Theophilos III and the Synodical confirmation, you are deemed worthy of the high honour of the ordination to Deacon.

In exceeding love to our Lord and Saviour Christ, and in wholehearted devotion to the Most Holy Mother of Churches, you have forsaken your parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and came to the Holy Land to serve with all your strength and devote yourself to the All-holy places of our Lord, which are connected to the earthly presence of our Redeemer, and gush living waters and divine grace, along with rivers of blessings to those who come to venerate them in faith.

Within a short time of your presence as a Monk in our Venerable Patriarchate of Jerusalem, you have shown perfect obedience and exemplary willingness to do your duty, respect for the elders, love for the younger ones. For this and as a really short period that completed long times, you claim today with the grace of the Holy Sepulchre to enter the first degree of the Priesthood.

I am more than sure of the various feelings that overwhelm your noble soul and heart.  The joy and rejoicing are possessed by fear and awe because you certainly feel the magnitude of the responsibility you take on. Do not be cowardly though, but have courage in the benefactor Christ, whom you will serve actively from today.

With a humble mind face the Οne who extended Ηis hands on the Cross, out of His unspoken philanthropy to the human race. He is our consolation and strength in Him only do we hope. For this reason, in all your actions, you should try to follow His example as the safe type and order of salvation.

Your human weakness may make you believe this is a hard-to-bear achievement, but you should always have before your eyes, and hear the Lord’s philanthropic words: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30).

For this, come in sober mind and a contrite heart to receive from my unworthy hands the Grace of the All-mighty Holy Spirit, Who fills and safeguards the militant Church of Christ.

The prayers of His Beatitude, our Father and Patriarch, of the members of our Holy and Sacred Synod and all your Hagiotaphite brethren are always accompanying you, and especially at this honourable and sacred time of your life.

I pray that the Grace of the All-holy and Life-giving Tomb of our Saviour Christ will safeguard you all the days of your life.”

The about to be ordained Dositheos replied as follows:

“Glory be to God for all things!

Your Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias,

Your Eminence Archbishop Isidoros of Hierapolis and Sacristan of the Holy Sepulchre,

Reverend Elder Dragoman Archimandrite Mattheos,

Reverend Exarch of the Holy Sepulchre in Greece, Archimandrite Raphael,

Reverend Fathers,

Blessed flock,

With the wishes of His Holiness our Father and Patriarch Theofilos, we gathered today to honour our celebrated Saints, to be strengthened and to prepare for the great day of the incarnation of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ and finally to give me double joy than I would receive, if it were not for your presence, this blessed moment of my personal Pentecost.

First I want to thank everyone who contributed to my biological and spiritual well-being, which made me stand here today. Starting from my relatives in the flesh, my teachers, the Metropolitan of Monemvasia and Sparta  Efstathios, the brotherhood of the Holy Monastery of the Forty Saints in Laconia and its Hegoumen, Father Ephraim, who taught me, strengthened and secured me in my first steps in the monastic life, I conclude cordially thanking the Holy Common of the Holy Sepulchre and its Hegoumen, our Father and Patriarch Theofilos, His Eminence, Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias, for the honour I receive to be ordained by the General Patriarchal Commissioner, the Elder Dragoman reverend Archimandrite Mattheos, who trusted and supported me in my first steps in these God-trodden places. In general, I thank the Holy and Sacred Synod for the trust it shows in me.

The joy is great. The grace of God brought me to the places where the righteous Abraham was led when obeying the will of God, went out of kinship and place that raised him. This is where the King-prophet David was when his son Absalom was chasing him to kill him to get his throne, but he prayed to God to have mercy on his child because what happens to him is due to his own mistakes. In the place where our Lady was born, where she offered us our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the place where our ancestors have left us their indelible passage through the centuries to this day.

I will close my speech of thanks with a wish. Our Catholicon that dominates the Church of the Resurrection, after the great catastrophe it suffered in 1810, united the Greeks everywhere in its reconstruction, so that since then it is called “The miracle of the faith of the Greeks”. I wish in these special moments that we pass to maintain our unity and oneness.

Thank you all for your love and forgive any of my mistakes!”

At the invocation of the Divine Grace, the Monks, Nuns and laity present exclaimed “Axios!” for the ordained.

After the Divine Liturgy, the new Hierodeacon offered a reception to all who honoured him, at the office of Geronda Sacristan, Archbishop Isidoros of Hierapolis.

In the morning the newly ordained came to the Patriarchate Headquarters and received the blessing and Fatherly admonitions from His Beatitude.

From Secretariat-General

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