[limpoporanique]

Since everything happens to a purpose in the sight of God it is striking that His Holiness served the services for the feast of the Entry of the Mother of God before his repose.

He then served a moleben before the relics of St Tikhon Patriarch & Confessor in which he said the following as almost his last public words.

“I am convinced”, said the Patriarch, “that through the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God, the Lord strengthened St Tikhon in his Patriarchal service as a confessor. To his lot fell the most difficult and trying time at the beginning of the persecution and of the repression. He appeared as an intercessor for all of us before the Throne of God. St Tikhon, the newmartyrs and the confessors of the Church of Christ pray for and aid in the restoration of Holy Orthodoxy in our Russian land.”


These words could also in their own way refer to His Holiness.

Vechnaya Pamyat! Memory eternal!


In Christ- Fr Raphael