Hermoupolis, Syros, Greece, December 8, 2023
Photo: vimaorthodoxias.gr
St. Nicholas the Holy Hierarch and Wonderworker is one of the most beloved saints throughout the entire Orthodox world, and every year, his feast is celebrated with great festivity.
On the Greek island, the great saint was especially celebrated yesterday as the patron saint of sailors. The day included the Divine Liturgy and a procession to the port.
Metropolitan Dorotheos of Syros and clergy of Syros celebrated the Divine Liturgy yesterday in the historic cathedral of St. Nicholas in Hermoupolis. The service was attended by local representatives of the navy, coast guard, and merchant marines, and a number of other public representatives, reports the Vima Orthodoxias.
In his homily, the Metropolitan spoke of St. Nicholas a whole man who had found peace with God and his fellow man through his meekness and charity and his battle against the passions.
At the end of the service, Met. Dorotheos awarded the medal of the Metropolis, the Golden Cross of St. Methodios, to the Commander of the ship Blue Star Paros, Stavros Voudouris, who on September 18, at the port of Tinos, selflessly saved an elderly woman from certain drowning, who had been swept into the sea by strong winds.
Following the service, a public procession with an icon and a fragment of the relics of St. Nicholas was held, carried on the shoulders of students of the Merchant Marine Academy of Syros and men of the Coast Guard, flanked by a detachment of the Naval War Base of Syros, and others.
In the town square, a prayer was offered for the sailors, workers in the ship repair facilities, shipowners, and crews of the ships.
Following the procession, “escorted” by sea by dozens of boats that paid respects to their patron saint in various ways, with maneuvers, whistles, and jets of water, Met. Dorotheos offered a memorial prayer for those who have drowned at sea.
The procession then returned to the church.
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