On Tuesday, 1 September, the Parish-Community of Saints Anargiri in Oakleigh welcomed His Grace Bishop Kyriakos of Melbourne, who presided over Matins and the Divine Liturgy offered for the entire school community of Oakleigh Grammar, bringing together students, teachers, staff, and members of the wider school community in prayer at the beginning of the new ecclesiastical year.
The service was celebrated in a spirit of thanksgiving and prayer, entrusting the new ecclesiastical year to the loving providence of God. The participation of the students and staff of Oakleigh Grammar reflected the important place of the Church in the spiritual formation and education of the younger generation.
During the Divine Liturgy, Bishop Kyriakos read the Patriarchal Message of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the Beginning of the Ecclesiastical Year, together with the Patriarchal Message marking the Solemn Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Natural Environment.
His Grace conveyed to the students and staff the paternal blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, assuring the school community of the Archbishop’s continual prayers and spiritual solicitude at the beginning of the new ecclesiastical year.
Addressing the students, His Grace encouraged them to begin the new ecclesiastical year with faith, diligence, gratitude, and love for God and for one another. His Grace reminded them that education is not limited to the acquisition of knowledge, but is also a journey in which the whole person is formed, mind, heart, and spirit in truth, virtue, and responsibility.
The celebration concluded with His Grace imparting the episcopal blessing upon the students, teachers, staff, and the entire Oakleigh Grammar community, praying that the Lord may grant them a blessed, fruitful, and peaceful new ecclesiastical year, filled with wisdom, health, strength, and every good gift from above.
