Metropolitan of Sweden attended ordination of Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Bishop Yohanoun Lahdo
On Saturday, 9 December 2023, His Eminence Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden and All Scandinavia, kindly invited by the Jacobite-Syrian Community of Stockholm, attended the ordination of Yohanoun Lahdo, elected for the needs of the Archdiocese of Sweden.
The ordination of the new Bishop was performed by the Patriarch of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and the East, Ighnatios Afrem II, at the Cathedral of St. James, in the Södertälje district of Stockholm, with the support of a multitude of hierarchs, priests and deacons.
The ordination was also attended by representatives of Christian Denominations and Confessions, as well as representatives of the local authorities.
Then, in honour of the newly ordained Bishop, a lunch was hosted in the reception hall of the church.
During the reception, Metropolitan Cleopas offered the new Bishop a hierarchical engolpion (medallion with an icon in the centre). He conveyed the paternal wishes and warm congratulations of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Speaking in Greek, the new Bishop thanked Metropolitan Cleopas for his honorary presence, as well as for the wishes of the Ecumenical Patriarch, while, as he pointed out in his ordination speech, he remembers Greece with great gratitude. He studied at the Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he will complete his doctoral studies soon. He also assured the Metropolitan of his disposition to cultivate even more mutually supportive relations between the Jacobite Syrian Community of Stockholm and the Holy Metropolis of Sweden.
The following afternoon, Sunday, December 10, Metropolitan Cleopas, accompanied, as the previous day, by Archimandrite Bartholomew Iatridis, Vicar of St. George’s Cathedral in Stockholm, visited the premises of St. Ephraim’s Cathedral of the Jacobite Syrian Community of Stockholm, where, kindly invited by Archbishop Benjamin Atas, he attended the lunch held in honour of Patriarch Ighnatios Afrem II and the new Bishop Yohanoun Lahdo.
Source: Metropolis of Sweden
