WEDNESDAY 10 / 23 MARCH 2022: At the invitation of His Grace Bishop George of Canberra, His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe addressed the annual Lenten clergy pastoral conference of the Diocese of Australia and New Zealand via video.
Speaking on the theme of ‘the pastoral nature of the canonical life’, Bishop Irenei addressed the assembled pastors on the importance of the ‘canonical consciousness’ of the Church. Whereas the Holy Canons are too often seen as simply ‘laws’ or ‘regulations’, divorced from pastoral or spiritual life — Vladyka said — in reality they are encapsulations of the pastoral care of the Church: the experience of her illumined Fathers and pastors offered to all generations with a single aim: to preserve the faithful from suffering, and lead them towards holiness.
Bishop Irenei encouraged the clergy of the Australia-New Zealand Diocese to redouble their defences against the creeping non-canonicity of too much ‘orthodox’ life in the present day, and to rest fast on the rock of the Church in the fulness of her teachings, for the preservation of the true spiritual life of her faithful and the potency of her witness to the troubled world.
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