With ecclesiastical brightness and splendor, the Sunday of Orthodoxy was celebrated in the Archdiocesan District of Northcote, Victoria, at the Church of Saint Paraskevi in the suburb of St. Albans in Melbourne, presided over by Bishop Evmenios of Kerasounta, joined also by Parish Priest Father Demosthenes Nikolaou.
Bishop Evmenios during his sermon referred to the meaning of the great feast day, which marks the triumph of Orthodoxy during the period of iconoclasm, while, among other things, he made a special mention of the first generation of immigrants, who, leaving their homeland for Australia, traveled with a suitcase in hand, but did not forget to take with them a holy icon and their true faith. Bishop Evmenios compared the immigrants to the Apostles, pointing out that “just as the Apostles left for distant and foreign places, and took the true faith there, so our immigrants brought the Orthodox faith and the Church to the fifth continent.”
At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, there was a procession of the holy icons around the Holy Church, in accordance with the ecclesiastical order for the feast day, while Bishop Evmenios thereafter conveyed to the faithful the blessings of Archbishop Makarios of Australia, as well as his wishes for a blessed Holy and Great Lent.
