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Your Eminence Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain, beloved brother and concelebrant in the Lord,

Your Eminences and Graces,

Your Excellencies, the Ambassadors,

Reverend Fathers,

Distinguished guests,

Beloved children in the Lord,

It is with joy that we stand once more in this Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom, which bears the name of the Great Church of our own City. This is not the first time that we preside over the Divine Liturgy here. The last time was four years ago, for the centennial of this Archdiocese. Today it is for a feast of a different measure: smaller in its outward form and, for that very reason, closer to the heart. It is the memory of the Holy Great Martyr Niketas, and it is the name-day of your Archbishop. The Patriarch is not often able to keep the feast of one of the hierarchs of the Throne at his own cathedral, in the midst of his own people. That we are able to do so today we count among the blessings of this journey.

The Church gives her children a name, and with the name she gives them a task. Niketas means the victor, and the hymns of this day do not allow the name to rest. They call the martyr “the namesake of true victory”. Who was he? A Goth, born beyond the Danube, beyond the frontier of the Roman world, in a people whom the Empire counted among the barbarians. He was instructed in the faith by Theophilus, bishop of the Goths, who had sat among the Fathers of Nicaea. He preached Christ to his own nation. When the pagan chieftain Athanaric began to persecute the Christians, Niketas confessed the faith before him and was cast into the fire, in the year 372. The fire took his life and left his body untouched. The Church of the Romans received a Goth as one of her Great Martyrs.

What, then, was his victory? Not a victory of arms, though he came of a warrior people. It was the victory of which the beloved disciple speaks: “this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith” (1 John 5:4). Yesterday we exalted the precious and life-giving Cross. Today we see what the Cross accomplishes in a single human life. The martyr conquers by being conquered, and the fire that was meant to end his witness became its seal. Saint John Chrysostom teaches that the honour of a martyr is the imitation of the martyr («τιμὴ γὰρ μάρτυρος, μίμησις μάρτυρος», PG 50, 663). We do not honour Saint Niketas by admiring him from afar. We honour him by taking up, each in our own measure, the same confession.

Beloved brother Nikitas, you bear this name, and for seven years you have borne it as Archbishop of Thyateira. In June 2019 the Holy and Sacred Synod elected you unanimously to this throne, and in this very Cathedral, on the twenty-seventh of July, you were enthroned. You came to these islands as a shepherd who had already crossed the world: the first Metropolitan of Hong Kong and South East Asia, then the director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, a son of the Church in America. You knew, therefore, what this Archdiocese is: a Church of many nations under one omophorion. Greeks and Cypriots are here, with their children and grandchildren born in this land, and beside them the many who have found the Orthodox faith in these islands and made it their own. To all of them you have been a shepherd of peace. You have visited the parishes of these islands, stood beside your priests, cared for the Greek schools and gathered the young, and you have kept the communities of this Archdiocese together in peace, as one Body. Beyond the Archdiocese you have lent your voice, in the name of the Mother Church, to those whom the world still buys and sells, the victims of modern slavery. The Son of God Himself addressed the Church in Thyateira, in the Revelation of Saint John, with words which we make our own for you today: “I know your works, and your love, and your faith, and your service, and your patience, and that your later works are more than the first” (Revelation 2:19). May it be so. May your later works be more than the first.

Beloved children in the Lord, the feast of a shepherd is the feast of his flock. You honour your Archbishop today not only by your presence but by what you are: a community that prays, that gives, that hands on to its children the faith and the language of the Fathers, and that opens its doors to all who seek Christ. The Mother Church of Constantinople knows the labour of those who built this Cathedral far from home, the faithfulness of the generations who kept it, and the hope of the young who fill it now. She asks one thing of you. Stand with your Archbishop as he stands with you, in the unity of the one Body, so that the works of this Archdiocese in the years to come may be greater than all that has gone before, to the glory of God and the joy of His people.

Holy Great Martyr Niketas, namesake of true victory, intercede for the Archbishop who bears your name and for the flock entrusted to him. Beloved brother, from the Phanar and from our heart, we wish you many years: years of health, of peace, and of fruit in the vineyard of the Lord.

Τέκνα ἐν Κυρίῳ ἀγαπητά, ἤλθομεν ἀπὸ τὸ Φανάριον εἰς τὸν ἱστορικὸν αὐτὸν Καθεδρικὸν Ναὸν τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, διὰ νὰ ἑορτάσωμεν μαζί σας τὴν μνήμην τοῦ Ἁγίου Μεγαλομάρτυρος Νικήτα καὶ τὰ ὀνομαστήρια τοῦ Ποιμενάρχου σας. Ἐπὶ ἑπτὰ ἔτη ὁ ἀγαπητὸς ἀδελφὸς Νικήτας διακονεῖ τὴν θεόσωστον αὐτὴν Ἐπαρχίαν τοῦ Οἰκουμενικοῦ Θρόνου μὲ πίστιν, ἀγάπην καὶ ὑπομονήν, καὶ «τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔσχατα» εἶναι «πλείονα τῶν πρώτων» (πρβλ. Ἀποκ. β΄ 19). Ἡ Μήτηρ Ἐκκλησία τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως χαίρει καὶ σεμνύνεται διὰ τὸν ἑορτάζοντα ἀδελφὸν καὶ διὰ τὸν εὐσεβῆ λαόν της εἰς τὴν Μεγάλην Βρεταννίαν, καὶ σᾶς εὐλογεῖ ὅλους πατρικῶς, κλῆρον καὶ λαόν, γέροντας καὶ νέους, Ἕλληνας καὶ Κυπρίους, καὶ ὅλους τοὺς ἐν τῇ πίστει ἀδελφούς μας. Εὐχόμεθα ὁ Ἅγιος Νικήτας, «ὁ τῆς ἀληθοῦς νίκης φερώνυμος», νὰ σκέπῃ καὶ νὰ ἐνισχύῃ τὸν προσφιλῆ Ἀρχιεπίσκοπόν σας ἐπὶ ἔτη πολλά, ὑγιεινά, εἰρηνικὰ καὶ καρποφόρα, πρὸς δόξαν Θεοῦ καὶ οἰκοδομὴν τῆς Ἁγίας Αὐτοῦ Ἐκκλησίας. Χρόνια πολλὰ καὶ εὐλογημένα, Ἱερώτατε ἀδελφὲ Ἀρχιεπίσκοπε Θυατείρων! Ἄξιος!