His Holiness Porfirije, Patriarch of Serbia, congratulated Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America & New York on his election as First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad.

To His Eminence
NICHOLAS
Metropolitan of Eastern America & New York,
First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

Your Eminence,
Dear brother and concelebrant in the Lord,

It was with great joy that we received the news of your election as the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, at the meeting of the Council of Bishops in New York, and that you were entrusted with the highly esteemed office of spiritual father and shepherd of the Orthodox faithful who find joy and salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, owing to the pastoral care of the devoted clergy of ROCOR.

This year also marks the 15th anniversary of the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church in the homeland with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Remembering that magnificent event, and filled with joy because of the restoration of canonical unity, we congratulate you on this jubilee, offering prayers to the Lord to solidify you in your archpastoral service, enabling you to zealously safeguard the purity and unity of Orthodoxy.

We pray to the Lord to grant you bodily and spiritual strength and inexhaustible help in your God-pleasing archpastoral service.

With love in Christ the Lord,

+PORFIRIJE
Archbishop of Pec
Metropolitan of Belgrade‒Karlovci
Patriarch of Serbia