With ecclesiastical order and the appropriate splendor, today, the 1st Saturday of Lent, March 20, 2021, a day on which the Church celebrates the remembrance of the miracle of the Kollyva of the glorious Great Martyr Theodore of Tyre, the Divine Liturgy was served, officiated by His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, in the eponymous Holy Patriarchal Chapel of Ss Theodori, in the Queen of the Mediterranean Sea, Alexandria, Egypt.
Participating in the Divine festivities were the Patriarchal Vicar of Alexandria, His Eminence Narcissus Metropolitan of Naucratis and His Grace Germanos Bishop of Tamiathus. Clergy of the Patriarhal Court and seminarians from the “St Athanasios” Patriarchal Academy were present, framing the sacred pulpit and chanting the church hymns, under the guidance of the Elder Sacristan Fr. Pavlos Iosifidis, as well as many faithful of the city.
In the above chapel of the Patriarchal Palace, the daily services day and night are held, according to the monastic typikon, while the elections of the Hierarchs of the Alexandrian throne are held there. The iconostasis of the Temple was transferred from the Holy Temple of Agios Ioannis the Forerunner, from the historic Greek Kotsikeio Hospital of Alexandria.
At the end of the Divine Liturgy, after His Beatitude blessed the breads and the kollyva in honor of the Saint, he wished with paternal love that all the years be many and blessed and that they always remember that Alexandria is the center of the Patriarchate and where everyone should place himself at the service of the Alexandrian Church and not to forget that its patron is the Apostle and Evangelist Mark.
