Addresses at the Nomination and Episcopal Consecration of Archimandrite Kirill (Gundyaev) as Bishop of Vyborg, Vicar of the Leningrad Diocese (1976)
By the decision of His Holiness Patriarch Pimen and the Holy Synod of March 3, 1976, Archimandrite Kirill (Gundyaev), rector of the Leningrad Theological Academy and Seminary, was elected Bishop of Vyborg, vicar of the Leningrad Diocese.
Exactly 50 years ago, on March 13, 1976, at the Church of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian at the Leningrad Theological Academy, the rite of nomination took place; and on the following day, March 14, the First Sunday of Great Lent, the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, during the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Leningrad, the episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Kirill — the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ — was performed. The service was presided over by the ever-memorable Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov), whom His Holiness Patriarch Kirill calls his spiritual mentor and teacher.