SVOTS Professor Archpriest Alexander Rentel and Alumnus Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak (’06) have flown to Poland to join His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, as His Beatitude makes his first official visit to the Orthodox Church of Poland since his election as Primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) in November 2012.
The official visit, taking place from August 17 to 22, 2018, comes after the invitation of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland. Fr. Alexander and Metropolitan Tikhon’s secretary Archdeacon Joseph are part of the OCA delegation, which also includes His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West, Archpriest Daniel Andrejuk, and Subdeacon Roman Ostash.
The Orthodox Church in America and the Orthodox Church of Poland have enjoyed a long and especially close relationship. Saint Patriarch Tikhon served as rector of the seminary in Chelm for five years and then as Bishop of Lublin for a year before his arrival in America in 1898, while the OCA’s late Metropolitan Ireney, the late Archbishop Kiprian and many other clergy served the Polish Church prior to their arrival in the United States after World War II. In recent decades, the two Churches have cooperated closely in such areas as youth ministry and religious and theological education. A number of hierarchs and clergy of the Church of Poland are amongst the alumni of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary and Saint Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, PA.
Read more about the delegation to Poland here.
