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25th Sunday after Pentecost
December 7, 2008

His Beatitude, The Most Rev. Metropolitan JONAH of All America & Canada
PO Box 675, Syosset, NY 11791-0675

Your Beatitude:

Bless, Master!

On behalf of the Orthodox Fellowship of All Saints of China, please accept our congratulations on Your Beatitude's election as Primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

Your Beatitude has shown forth as a zealous leader to the flock entrusted to your care especially when abbot of the monastery of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The testimony of the monks shared with me in my recent visit to San Francisco attested to Your Beatitude's pastoral leadership.

Being an American convert, the sensitivity of Your Beatitude to the North American culture has provided a balanced spiritual formation of those who sought your spiritual direction, whether individually or as a collective community. Such a gift is a precious asset today for leading the Church "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ep 4:13 KJV)

The Orthodox Fellowship of All Saints of China offers you our joyful support, encouragement, and congratulations for the upcoming enthronement of Your Beatitude at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington, DC on Sunday December 28, and the challenges to the tasks ahead.

With the exclamation Axios! Axios! Axios! in Our Lord Jesus Christ, and asking your blessing and continued prayers, I remain on behalf of our Fellowship,

Yours in Christ,

Nelson Mitrophan Chin
under Most Rev. Metropolitan PHILIP, of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
President & Clerk, OFASC

cc: Board of Trustees: Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyaev under Most Rev. Metropolitan KIRILL of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Moscow Patriarchate; Dn Martin Watt under Most Rev. Archbishop JOB of the Diocese of Chicago and the Midwest; Peter C. McCarty under Most Rev. Metropolitan GERASIMOS of San Francisco, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen) under Right Rev. Bishop MAXIM, Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America; Fr. Geoffrey Korz under Most Rev. Archbishop SERAPHIM, Archdiocese of Canada, Orthodox Church in America; Fr John Whiteford under Right Rev. Bishop PETER, Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America (ROCOR)