On September 18, a Divine Liturgy was co-celebrated in the church of Reverend Alypius the Stylite in Antalya by the hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Job (Getcha) of Pisidia, Epertim and Exarch of Side and Antalya, Metropolitan Gerasimos of Petra and Cherronisos, and Bishop Michael (Anishchenko) of Koman, Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, who also celebrates his birthday on this day, according to the Stauropegium of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine.
A large number of believers from different countries prayed at the service, so Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, Greek, Georgian, Turkish, and Romanian languages were spoken during Liturgy.
After the first Liturgy, the recently enthroned Metropolitan Job, already as the ruling bishop, thanked all the attending hierarchs, priests, and believers for their sincere prayers, congratulated Bishop Michael, as a clergyman who had served as a priest in this temple for many years, and called for God’s blessing on everyone.
“Probably for the first time in the episcopal rank, we will co-serve with the bishop of Koman, Kyr Michael, who does not need to be introduced to you because all of you know him. Bishop Michael had worked here for many years as the abbot of this beautiful church, and I am very glad that he was able to co-serve with us today. The last time I co-served with him here, in your church, when I came as a guest of my late predecessor, Metropolitan Sotirios, when Bishop Michael was still an archimandrite, he was the abbot of the church, and we served together, I as a bishop and he, as a priest- archimandrite, for Christmas, but today we already co-served as bishops,” said vladyka Job.
“I am proud, because Bishop Michael was once my student in Geneva and I still have wonderful memories from the time when he studied with us in Geneva and as you know he is now the Exarch of the All-Holy Patriarch Bartholomew in Kyiv and the abbot of the Stauropegium in Kyiv,” Metropolitan of Pisidia concluded.
After the Liturgy, parishioners of the Alypius the Stylite temple, where Bishop Michael (then Archimandrite Michael) was the abbot for more than seven years (2011-2019), congratulated him on his birthday.
On September 17, Metropolitan Job of Pisidia was enthroned in the church of Reverend Alypius the Stylite in Antalya. The Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bishop Michael of Koman, arrived for the enthronement of the metropolitan, who was elected to the widowed Pisidia See.
