Beautiful Antioch
The European continent was evangelized by the authority of the Church of Antioch who sent the Apostle Paul to Europe to proclaim the Gospel. This same authority by which the Apostle Paul was sent is gathering again this week.
-Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon (my retired parish priest)
The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America (the church to which I belong) has been without a Metropolitan (Archbishop) for several months now. The circumstances surrounding this vacancy in our Church here in North America are irrelevant at the moment; what matters right now (and what stands as irrefutable fact regardless of the path leading to this moment) is that the Holy Synod of the Church of Antioch — a Church as lovely and venerable as she is ancient — gathers today, on the (Western) Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch, to select a new shepherd for us in North American.
This is the Church whose members in ancient times first attained the crown of the noble name of Jesus; it is her spiritual children who were first called Christians (little Christs). Her children, overflowing with the love of God and compelled by the love of their neighboring peoples, sent the eternal Word northward by way of the St. Paul for the salvation of the world. This scattered seed, sowed in faith across European lands and irrigated by the blood of the martyrs has given its increase in every generation: ten, twenty, thirty, one-hundredfold. The fruits of this labor have stretched to far corners of the earth, and she has gathered unto herself a plentiful harvest from the Lord not only in Antioch and Europe, but the Americas too — a harvest that includes me.
Because of Antioch my forefathers and mothers in Europe and the Americas came to know Christ; because of her I came to know Christ. Because of Antioch I am called by the name of Christ; because of her I am a Christian. Because of her I was grafted into Christ’s Body by the oil of holy Chrism; because of her I am saved.
Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
But how was I to call upon him in whom I have not believed? And how was I to believe in him of whom I have never heard? And how was I to hear without preachers in my beloved lands — Europe and the Americas — foremost among them St. Paul? And how could St. Paul preach unless he had been sent by Antioch? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!”1
Indeed, how beautiful the feet of this ancient See. How blessed and resplendent is she, my mother named Antioch, who tilled the soil of the nations and spread the seed of the Word in faith for the salvation of the world — for my salvation.
She cares for me as her child, and I for her as my mother; so I pray for her continually, my blessed Mother Antioch — especially today as she gathers out of fatherly love for the sake of my spiritual family here in North America. In ancient times this holy Church gathered and in the Spirit commissioned the Apostle Paul (and Barnabas) to sow the seeds of Christ among the nations. Today, having reaped a harvest of this apostolic seed in the Americas, she gathers again in the Spirit to appoint for these spiritual children a shepherd who cares for them — a shepherd to tend, protect, and exhort me and my spiritual kin, a bishop of bishops who like like Sts. Peter and Paul may run with endurance and full of faith — that he might grow with the whole of his spiritual house into the fullness of our Head, Jesus Christ, and that we might together attain life everlasting and a share in the imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance reserved for the faithful servants of God in heaven.
By the prayers of Sts. Peter and Paul, may God in his mercy remember his holy, beloved Church of Antioch and incline his ear toward us this day; and by his Spirit, may his will be made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.
See Romans 10:13-16.
Artist Attribution:
Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. Dedication of Paul and Barnabas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59217 [retrieved February 21, 2023]. Original source: Estate of Frank Wesley, http://www.frankwesleyart.com/main_page.htm.