February 12, 2004
The Pious Pastors
of the Holy Metropolis of Denver
Beloved in the Lord,
I am in receipt of Protocol Letter 927/2003 from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, dated January 16, 2004 which announces that, responding to the information submitted by His Eminence Metropolitan Gabriel of Komanon, the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Western Europe, five names have been added to the canon of saints commemorated in the Great Church of Christ.
You may therefore include the following new saints of the Church in your listing, to be commemorated on July 20:
Protopresbyter Alexios (Medvedkov)
Presbyter Dimitrios
(Klepinine)
Monastic (Nun) Maria (Skobtsov)
Iouri (Skobtsov),
son of Nun Maria
Elie (Fondaminskii)
These saints of the Soviet era in Russia remind us that the holy ones of God are not merely those who lived centuries ago, but also our contemporaries who bear witness to our holy, catholic and Apostolic Orthodox faith in the circumstances of our day.
With Paternal Blessings,
+Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver