Sunday of Orthodoxy was a great celebration day for the Annunciation parish community in Olmsted Township, Ohio. On Sunday, March 17, 2019, HE Metropolitan Nicolae ordained Deacon Petru Neaga, the future parish priest of the community, to the priesthood.
The feast began on Saturday night with the Vespers service where HE Nicolae spoke to the faithful about the blessing received from Romania through the parts of the relics of St. Irodion, offered for veneration to the Romanian parishes in the United States. HE Nicolae remembered the life of St. Irodion, the disciple and later the spiritual father of St. Callinicus of Cernica. St. Irodion was the abbot of the Lainici hermitage on the Jiu valley between 1854 and 1900, until the passing to the Lord. HE Nicolae also remembered the history of the discovery of the relics of St. Irodion on April 10, 2009, as well as the fact that three weeks before he had been visiting the Lainici Monastery in order to receive the relics of St. Irodion, with the blessing of HE Metropolitan Irineu of Oltenia.
On Sunday of Orthodoxy, along with Metropolitan Nicolae served Fr. Dean Calin Barbolovici, the parish priest Fr. Ion Gherman, Fr. Ionel Satnoianu, Deacon Aurel Pâra from the Eparchial Center in Chicago, and the candidate to priesthood, Deacon Petru Neaga. With much excitement, at the time appointed after the Cherubic hymn, Deacon Petru read the Confession before the Diocesan Bishop, HE Metropolitan Nicolae, in which he solemnly promised to "follow the teachings of the Holy Gospel, the Holy Apostles, the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church ... and shall be in all obedience to the hierarch ... following the rules and canons of the Orthodox Church, observing the Statute for the Organization and Functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the other church laws, the resolutions of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Statute of Organization and Regulations of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas.” It followed the ordination to priesthood, with the procession around the Holy Table, the reading of the prayers and then the dressing in the priestly vestments.
At the time of the sermon, HE Metropolitan Nicolae spoke about the significance of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, namely the victory of the right teaching of faith on all the heresies in the 9th century, a victory synthesized by restoring the veneration of icons and establishing this celebration of Orthodoxy in Constantinople on March 11, 843. HE Nicolae then spoke of the blessing received on this great feast day through the relics of St. Irodion. The hierarch concluded the sermon with the significance of the priest's ordination, urging them to work together for the benefit of the parish community and offering the new antimision.
The brotherly agape offered by the Fr. Petru Neaga’s family ended a blessed day.