On the morning of Tuesday the 12th of March 2024, the first chapel dedicated to Saint Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis the Hymnographer was consecrated on the grounds of the Monastery of Panagia Dobra in Beroea.
According to the ritual of consecration, Matins took place in the katholikon of the Monastery, and from there a procession took place with the relics of martyrs (and the right arm of Saint Gerasimos) to the chapel. The consecration was presided over by Metropolitan Panteleimon of Beroea, Naoussa and Campania, who was a spiritual child of Saint Gerasimos. Metropolitan Panteleimon, as the head of the monastic brotherhood and being the place where he resides, chose this monastery for the chapel, it being the 49th consecration of his pastorate. Then the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated with five other Hierarchs, and in the presence of a large crowd and local monastics, including some from Mount Athos, specifically from the Skete of Little Saint Anna where Saint Gerasimos lived as a monastic.
At the end of the Divine Liturgy, a memorial service was held for the 202nd anniversary of the Battle of Dobra (March 12, 1822) and the hanging of the abbot Gerasimos.
Among the words spoken by Metropolitan Panteleimon to the people at the consecration are the following:
"Saint Gerasimos the Hymnographer, our Elder, whom we honor as a saint and to whom we dedicated this temple, did not become a saint because our Ecumenical Patriarchate recorded him in its Hagiologion, but because with his obedience and humility, with his struggle and his prayer, he managed to live in the grace of God, to converse with the saints, to see them, to feel them close to him, because his life was like theirs, so that none of the pleasures and delights of this world, no worldly honor and human glory should attract him more than the love of God and His presence.
This is how the venerable Gerasimos lived, without differing in anything from the saints of old. They had assigned him offices and ranks and bishoprics and they wanted to make him a professor at the University, but he considered all these as nothing, in comparison to being an ascetic in his cell, at Little Saint Anna; to be an ascetic like Saint Symeon the New Theologian, whose memory is honored by our Church today and who was found worthy, like the venerable Gerasimos, to see the uncreated light and to have his soul flooded by divine eros."
According to the ritual of consecration, Matins took place in the katholikon of the Monastery, and from there a procession took place with the relics of martyrs (and the right arm of Saint Gerasimos) to the chapel. The consecration was presided over by Metropolitan Panteleimon of Beroea, Naoussa and Campania, who was a spiritual child of Saint Gerasimos. Metropolitan Panteleimon, as the head of the monastic brotherhood and being the place where he resides, chose this monastery for the chapel, it being the 49th consecration of his pastorate. Then the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated with five other Hierarchs, and in the presence of a large crowd and local monastics, including some from Mount Athos, specifically from the Skete of Little Saint Anna where Saint Gerasimos lived as a monastic.
At the end of the Divine Liturgy, a memorial service was held for the 202nd anniversary of the Battle of Dobra (March 12, 1822) and the hanging of the abbot Gerasimos.
Among the words spoken by Metropolitan Panteleimon to the people at the consecration are the following:
"Saint Gerasimos the Hymnographer, our Elder, whom we honor as a saint and to whom we dedicated this temple, did not become a saint because our Ecumenical Patriarchate recorded him in its Hagiologion, but because with his obedience and humility, with his struggle and his prayer, he managed to live in the grace of God, to converse with the saints, to see them, to feel them close to him, because his life was like theirs, so that none of the pleasures and delights of this world, no worldly honor and human glory should attract him more than the love of God and His presence.
This is how the venerable Gerasimos lived, without differing in anything from the saints of old. They had assigned him offices and ranks and bishoprics and they wanted to make him a professor at the University, but he considered all these as nothing, in comparison to being an ascetic in his cell, at Little Saint Anna; to be an ascetic like Saint Symeon the New Theologian, whose memory is honored by our Church today and who was found worthy, like the venerable Gerasimos, to see the uncreated light and to have his soul flooded by divine eros."
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
