Deacon Ordination in the Holy Metropolis of Corfu
In the Holy Temple of Saint Nikolaos Kato Korakiana, on the morning of Lent Sunday, March 7, 2021, His Eminence the Bishop of Corfu, Paxos and the Diapontian Islands, Mr. Nektarios, did the Divine Liturgy and ordained a new deacon, Mr. Theofanis Gallos, married and father of one child who attends the Ecclesiastical High School of Vella.
Addressing the ordained, Mr. Nektarios stressed that he receives the priesthood at a time when respect for the clergy has disappeared, people do not wish him “to rejoice in your kingdom”, as before. Golgotha is the ministry in the Church. People excel in worldly things and avoid near service. But if man receives the grace of God, he invites the clergyman to serve. And then he becomes experienced of the word of Christ that “gates of Hades, the dominion of the Church”.
As the Gospel of Lent states, the criterion of God is love. This love becomes a sacrifice for our brother. Today we seal, we close our hearts, we do not embrace each other, surrendering to a coldness. Any offer of secular organizations is made by calculation, out of interest most of the time and is not sacrificial and generous. All this has to do with sin. And the clergyman is called to resurrect man from sin, from falsehood, from evil, from hatred. Sin is the opposite of love. That is why the clergyman must be prepared in the foreign society to plow spiritually the life and the heart of the people, with humility and solidarity and a path of holiness.
That is why the clergyman must first purify himself, be enlightened to purify and enlighten others in the Holy Spirit. Struggle and effort are necessary and this is the wish of the bishop to the new clergyman: to fight with all his might to appear worthy of his calling and to serve the people of God in the arid age, in order to make the world thirsty with the Gospel.
