Amidst the joyful atmosphere of the twelve-day celebration of Christmas, on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 2nd, the official cutting ceremony of the Vasilopita of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia took place at the Holy Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Sydney.
Archbishop Makarios of Australia blessed and cut the traditional Vasilopita, in the presence of Metropolitan Seraphim of Sevastia, Bishop Iakovos of Miletoupolis, Bishop Christodoulos of Magnesia, Bishop Bartholomew of Charioupolis, clergy of the Holy Archdiocese, members of the Archbishopric Council, the Consul General of Greece in Sydney, Ioannis Mallikourtis, and many others from the community.
At the beginning of the ceremony, following the Archbishop’s prompt, Metropolitan Seraphim and Consul General Mallikourtis addressed brief greetings, extending their wishes for the New Year and sharing messages regarding the challenges accompanying it.
Subsequently, Archbishop Makarios, executing and describing step by step the customary tradition of cutting the Vasilopita, delved deeper into the portions dedicated to the Church and the poor. “When we mention the Church, we do not only mean the spiritual bond,” he emphasized during the cutting of the fourth piece of the Vasilopita and explained: “In Orthodox Canon Law, there is no Orthodox Church without an administrative body. Therefore, if you hear people talking about a Church that doesn’t have a Patriarch, doesn’t have an Archbishop, doesn’t have Bishops, doesn’t have priests, doesn’t have this entire administrative structure that the Fathers of our Church have established through divine inspiration and synodically, then that is a different Church and a different Orthodoxy. But when we refer to the Orthodox Church, we start with our Patriarch, who is the most sacred and venerable figure and the first among the priesthood of the Orthodox. By saying Church, we bring to mind our Ecumenical Patriarchate… And certainly, within the Church, we also include our Holy Archdiocese, which is the divinely established organization that unites us all here in Australia, blesses us and sanctifies us.”
Cutting the piece for the poor, the Archbishop clarified that although this particular term commonly refers to our fellow human beings lacking money and material goods, it also encompasses a spiritual dimension. He focused on the phenomenon of loneliness, noting among other things: “A person is poor when they live alone, without companionship. A person is poor when they seek a smile. A person is poor when they want to express something but has no one to listen to them.’ The Archbishop pointed out that there are many forms of poverty, material and spiritual, and concluded with paternal urging: ‘We should never close our hearts to those in need”.
Following this, the distribution of the pieces of the Vasilopita took place, and Nikolaos Psychogios found the hidden coin. Archbishop Makarios wished everyone a blessed and peaceful new year in 2024, praying that it may bring them the abundant blessings of the all-good God.
Translated by Ioanna Georgakopoulou