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On 10, 13 and 14 June, many of us gathered to prepare our Church and Hall for Vladica’s visit. We tidied, cleaned, hoovered, mopped, polished and painted, setting everything up for the big day. On Saturday 14 Vladica Atanasie (Rusnak) and Archdeacon Paul arrived back from consecrating the church in Padua in Italy and reached the hotel we had booked for them just outside Colchester at 11.30 pm.
Vladica arrived at church at 8.45 on Sunday morning, All Saints Day. The Liturgy began at 9.30, after six men, Georgian Cosma, Nicolae Briscan, Florin Murgu, Vadim Khoruzhenko, Ilie Nuno and Antonio Brailescu, had been tonsured readers at the Third Hour and Reader Sergiu Novitchi has been ordained subdeacon at the Sixth Hour.
During the Liturgy Deacon Sergiu Smantana was ordained priest and Subdeacon Sergiu Novitchi was ordained deacon. (Unlike in the Russian Church, ordinations in the Romanian Church in Western Europe are carried out free of charge and are therefore no candidate is forced to wait years for ordination for money reasons. However, all candidates must be qualified and have studied theology and pastoral care or be in the process of so doing).
The Liturgy was concelebrated by Vladica, Archdeacon Paul, seven priests, Fathers Andrew Phillips, Ioan Iana, Leonid Tauleanu, Grigorie Mereacre, Mihai Constantinescu, Alexandru Visan, Nikolai Bulat and our two deacons. Vladica Atanasie (Rusnak) is himself Moldovan, as were four of the priests and one of the deacons who concelebrated. As usual, both choirs, the Russian-English choir and the Romanian-Moldovan choir, with Moldovans, of whom there were many in church, singing in all languages.
With about 250 people in church, communion was as usual from three chalices, with about 70 children and many of our faithful friends coming to us from the Greek monastery in Tolleshunt Knights. The Liturgy finished at 12.45 and Vladica gave Fr Andrew various awards, including a second epigonation in honour of St Athanasius, the right to wear his mitre, awarded by a now departed bishop (Eternal Memory!) in 2020 for 35 years’ service, and a third jewelled cross. (Vladica Metropolitan Joseph had already given Fr Andrew the right to celebrate the Liturgy with the holy doors open until ‘Our Father’). The Liturgy was filmed by a representative from the Romanian Patriarchal Trinitas TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT6kyDa_nho
After the Liturgy, we all ate in the Hall, which had been decorated by our Moldovan and Romanian parishioners and beneath our two marquees in the garden. Vladica spoke to Russian speakers in Russian and others in their own languages, Romanian, English and Italian. Vladica will be returning to his Colchester parish in a few months’ time and will then ordain the next batch of candidates. It was made clear that Vladica would like to gather others of Non-Romanian nationalities into our Archdiocese. He mentioned to us that he has ordained 16 men to the priesthood and the deaconate since 10 May 2025. In Italy, where he served before, he set up 31 parishes on the old calendar. Vladica is about to start a doctorate on the subject of ‘Autocephaly’, a theme that has been dear to our hearts for some 50 years.