By Metropolitan Panteleimon of Beroia, Naousa and Kampania
(Delivered on August 30th 2025 in the Church of Saint Alexander, Patriarch of Constantinople, in Alexandreia of Imathia)
"You were seen, O all-glorious, as the performer of secret rites to the Most Divine Trinity on high, worshiping them with purity and singing unceasingly, O Hierarch Alexander."
Today our Church celebrates the memory of three Holy Archbishops of Constantinople, among whom is Saint Alexander, to whom this beautiful church of our city is dedicated. And we especially honor Saint Alexander this year, as this year we celebrate the anniversary of the completion of 1700 years since the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, in which our Saint also participated.
Saint Alexander, as one of the 318 God-bearing Fathers, defended the Orthodox faith from the heresies of Arius and was also worthy, by the grace and illumination of the Holy Spirit, to contribute to the correct formulation of our faith in the second person of the Holy Trinity, in the Son and Word of God, who is not a creation of God but consubstantial with Him. For this reason, the sacred hymnographer praises him as “the performer of secret rites to the Most Divine Trinity on high.”
But how did Saint Alexander succeed in understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the place of the incarnate Son and Word of God within it?
He achieved this not with worldly knowledge and human capabilities, but with the grace of God, which is given abundantly to those who worship God “purely,” as the holy hymnographer sings about Saint Alexander. Those, that is, who worship God with purity of soul and with purity of intention and disposition, to them God reveals His mysteries and makes them understand what the wise men of the world, such as Arius, are unable to comprehend and correctly understand.
This happened with Saint Alexander, who lived in an era during which the Church was still under persecution. The purity and cleanliness of his soul made him not only not calculate the danger but also to want to serve Christ and His Church as a cleric with love for the people of God and the true faith, and he distinguished himself for the grace of God, who offers it richly to those who approach and worship Him with a pure and clean soul.
God seeks such souls and over such pure and clean souls He watches over and graces them and makes them wise and sanctifies them. These attract His grace, because God wants us to believe in Him and to worship Him not out of obligation nor out of need or interest but out of love.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
