METROPOLITAN TAKES LEAVE OF DIOCESAN CLERGY & FLOCK

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti's Olga Lipich) - Metropolitan Juvenalis (Tarasov, in the world) has retired due to the ailments of his advanced age. Today, he took leave of the clergy and flock of the Kursk Eparchy in Central Russia's south, which he led for twenty years. The Metropolitan said he had secretly taken monastic vows of extreme ascesis.

Metropolitan Juvenalis served vespers at Kursk's Cathedral of the Apparition of Our Lady last night. After the service, he made a farewell address to the congregation. He thanked God for the twenty years of his episcopal service in Kursk, when, with the Lord's help, he was destined to restore from the ruins many shrines of the local land-the renowned Korennoi, Znamensky, Rylsky and Gornensky monasteries, several convents, and approximately 200 parish churches. The Orthodox Christian Encyclopaedia theological research centre under the Moscow Patriarchate passed the information to Novosti with reference to the Kursk diocesan press service.

Within the twenty years when Metropolitan Juvenalis held the bishop's see in Kursk, the region saw a cherished and long-established pious tradition reborn. It implies regular huge processions with the miracle-working icon of the Apparition of Our Lady, popularly known as the Korennoi of Kursk-derived from koren, the Russian for root, as the original icon was unearthed in the Middle Ages from under oak roots in the city's environs.

A theological seminary was revived in Kursk, and a Christian classical grammar school established thanks to the Metropolitan's dedicated labour. Optional classes of Fundamentals of Christian Culture were introduced in a majority of secondary schools of Kursk and the region round it earlier than anywhere else throughout Russia.

As he was addressing the cathedral congregation last night, Metropolitan Juvenalis thanked his flock and secular authorities for their trust, support and prayers. After that, he divested of his gorgeous sacerdotal robes and the white cowl of his ecclesiastical rank to put on the black cassock of a hermit.

In hermitage, the retiring ecclesiastical dignitary was named after Archbishop Juvenalis of Ryazan (Maslovsky, in the world). Bishop of Kursk in 1923-25, he met martyr's death in 1937.

The Metropolitan's farewell service gathered a congregation of several thousand. Igor Astapov, regional vice-governor, and other secular VIPs were present.