NEW YORK: December 30, 2008
Bishop Jerome of Manhattan Participates In the Enthronement of the Newly-Elected Head of the Orthodox Church in America

From the Editors: On Sunday, December 28, 2008, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, His Grace Bishop Jerome of Manhattan participated in the celebration of the enthronement of His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah, the newly-elected Head of the Orthodox Church in America. During the reception honoring Vladyka Jonah, Bishop Jerome read a congratulatory message from the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia:

Your Beatitude, Most Reverend Vladyko: 

From our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, we wish to express our warmest and sincere congratulations on your election as First Hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America. 

May the grace and guidance of the Holy Spirit be with you, and may your ministry bring abundant fruit on the field of the Holy Orthodox Church. 

Our prayer is that yours be a time of peace, uniting and confirming your God-given flock in the Faith. 

We hope and pray that this, your time of service, will be one of continuing, increasingly cordial ties between the Orthodox Church in America, and our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. 

Our Churches share a common history, and a common spiritual tradition. May that tradition ever deepen our love and understanding, and our commitment to the Faith committed by Christ to His Apostles. Only in that commitment can we work to our mutual benefit, and to the benefit of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Yours fraternally in Christ, 

Metropolitan Hilarion 
First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia