This year’s World Day of Orthodox Youth celebrations were attended by a record number of people for recent years, including a large number of guests from abroad. The event was held, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland, from February 10 to 12 in Warsaw. On Friday evening, after the participants were registered, they were taken to the Forest Education Center in the village of Celestynów, where they enjoyed the play “Road to Paradise,” and a concert of traditional folk songs by the band Żemerwa, reports the Polish Orthodox Church.

On Saturday morning, the youth visited various interesting places around Warsaw. In the afternoon, they enjoyed a concert by the Georgian choir Rikhi and the band Enej. Then a theological Q and A session was held, opened by His Grace Bishop Warsonofiusz of Siemiatycze, who spoke about the theme of this year’s conference: “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am among them.” The Saturday evening service was celebrated at the Church of St. John Climacus in western Warsaw, which was among the organizers and hosts of the conference. The youth then enjoyed an exhibition of folk embroidery, entitled, “Let’s Praise God with the Traditions of Our Ancestors.”

The culmination of the weekend event was the Sunday Divine Liturgy, celebrated by the primate of the Polish Church, Met. Sawa, together with Archbishop Grzegorz of Bielsko, Bishop Andrzej of Supraśl, and the aforementioned Bp. Warsonofiusz, in the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Warsaw. Following the service, the hierarchs, clergy, and youth all went to lunch together. (Quelle: www.orthochristian.com, 14. Februar 2023)