NEW YORK: December 9, 2021
The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad congratulates the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the 31st anniversary of his episcopal consecration

To His Beatitude
ONOUPHRY
Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine
Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Your Beatitude, Vladyka:

We heartily greet Your Holiness with the important 31st anniversary of your fervently graceful episcopal service!

On this important day for you, we hasten to assure you that the fervent prayers lifted by you for the strengthening and bolstering of Holy Orthodox Christianity are very dear to us, and that your Primatial staff of service profoundly consoles all Orthodox Christians, most of all, of course, the flock of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The virtuous qualities you possess are not shared by everyone, only by a few infrequent people—people mostly with a broad, warm, responsive heart, with strictly Christian upbringing instilled from early childhood. With these important qualities, you bind like cement the growing edifice of the Church and thereby grant her the possibility of rising ever higher, shining with the grace-filled light of Christ’s truth amid the darkness of temptation and the tribulations of this world.

Therefore, we, your fellow servants in the Vineyard of Christ, prayerfully wish you to continue to rightly teach the word of truth and with the same rare youthful energy that you employed to lead up to this time, desiring for you good health and strength and boldness of all powers in the hope that the Lord will lead you to see even more infrequent important dates to the glory of God and the good of the canonical Church on the holy land of the Kievan cradle!

Asking your holy prayers, we have the honor of assuring you of our devotion and love in the Lord,

+ HILARION
Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York,
First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia,
President of the Synod of Bishops

+ MARK
Metropolitan of Berlin and Germany

+ KYRILL
Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America,
Secretary of the Synod of Bishops

+ GABRIEL
Archbishop of Montreal and Canada

+ IRENEI
Bishop of London and Western Europe

+ NICHOLAS
Bishop of Manhattan,
Deputy Secretary of the Synod of Bishops