The Archbishop of Australia bid farewell to 2024 with the Residents of Saint Basil’s Aged Care Home

Speaking with and exchanging wishes with the elderly expatriate residents of the “Saint Basil’s” Aged Care Home, in the Lakemba suburb of Sydney, His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, bid farewell to the year 2024.

On Tuesday afternoon, 31 December 2024, His Eminence officiated at the Great Vespers on the occasion of the feast of Saint Basil the Great, in the chapel dedicated to him in the Aged Care Home. Also present at the Vespers were His Grace Bishop Iakovos of Miletoupolis, who is responsible for pastoral and spiritual matters in the “Saint Basil’s” Organisation, clergymen from the city of Sydney, the Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Criminologist from Greece, Mr. Athanasios Kehagioglou, members of the Board of Directors of “Saint Basil’s”, members of its staff, as well as residents of the facility in Lakemba.

After the Vespers service, Archbishop Makarios blessed and cut the traditional Vasilopita, and then spoke appropriately about Saint Basil the Great, Patron of “Saint Basil’s Aged Care Homes”, who was particularly distinguished for his social and charitable work. His Eminence congratulated and thanked from the bottom of his heart the people who serve with devotion the Aged Care Organisation of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia, while wishing everyone abundant blessings from God during the new year 2025. He also had the opportunity to talk to the elderly residents of the Aged Care Home, to listen to them, to personally wish each and every one of them well for the new year, but also to receive heartfelt and moving wishes from them.