On Wednesday, December 23, 2009, His Beatitude, the Most Blessed JONAH of All America and Canada led the Memorial Divine Liturgy for the newly departed and ever memorable Archbishop JOB of Chicago and the Midwest at Chicago’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. Concelebrating with His Beatitude for this liturgy were: His Eminence, Metropolitan CHRISTOPHER of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America; Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate; Archbishop SERAPHIM of Ottawa and Canada; Archbishop NICOLAE of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas; Bishop MARK of Toledo and the Midwest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America; Bishop NIKON of Boston, New England and the Albanian Archdiocese; Bishop BENJAMIN of San Francisco and the West; and Bishop MELCHISEDEK of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. Praying at the Divine Liturgy was the Right Reverend MARK, former Bishop of Boston.
Likewise, Archimandrite Zacchaeus, Dean of St. Catherine the Great Martyr Church in Moscow, Russia and Archpriest Andrei Papkov, representing the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia concelebrated with the clergy of the Diocese of the Midwest at this Memorial Divine Liturgy.
Following the Divine Liturgy, His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH offered a comforting sermon to all on the need to now rejoice in the legacy that Archbishop JOB has left for all his spiritual children, family and friends and to focus on the fact that Christ is the Conqueror of Death, and that as Christians there is no death that separates us from one another, since Christ arose from the dead and with Him all will rise on the last day.
Archbishop JOB was then carried by the clergy, who were led by His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH and the concelebrating hierarchs, around the Cathedral in procession and then placed in the vehicle which will bring him to his place of eternal rest beside his beloved church of St. John the Baptist in Black Lick, Pennsylvania. On the way to St. John the Baptist Church, the body of the newly departed and ever-memorable Archbishop JOB will be brought to St. Theodosius of Chernigov Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio for the clergy and faithful of the Cleveland Deanery of the Orthodox Church in America and other local Orthodox Christians to bid farewell to this great hierarch of the Church.
Memory eternal to Archbishop JOB!
