Metropolitan Athenagoras of Belgium and Exarch of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and the clergy of the Metropolis were pleased to receive the news of the canonization of Venerable Elder Sophrony Sakharov.
The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate accepted the recommendation of the Canonical Committee and added to the list of Saints of the Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, Abbot and creator of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, in Essex, UK, during the first day of its ordinary session for November, on Wednesday, November 27, 2019.
Metropolitan Athenagoras had been associated with St. Sophrony since his youth, when his priest father, late f. Ignatius Peckstadt, as a parish priest and clergyman of the parish of Apostle Andrew in Ghent, made pilgrim trips with his family and his parishioners to Essex. The highlight of Elder Sophrony’s relationship with the parish of St. Andrew in Ghent was his visit at the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross in September 1980, his celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and his speech, things that he did not use to do far from the monastery.
