Page 16 - Western Diocese Annual 2023

DIOCESE OF WESTERN AMERICA
tions but also spoke of the chal- lenges and their concern for the trend of what has become lawful and what not and what is accept- ed and what is not and what should our response be to it. Bish- op Grigorije reiterated his posi- tion and point of the church being a community where the other is not rejected but accepted and it’s the church then, as a community, which will lead us on the path we need to take.
Later, during dinner, which followed Vespers, a beautiful ren- dition of Svilen Konac, Bach Min- uet1and2andafolkkolowas performed by Cellist Popadija Bil- jana Bojovic which served as a
most fitting end to the day’s activi- ties.
Bishop Grigorije’s third and fi- nal talk took place the morning of the third day of the Institute and was entitled On Eccleisial Minis- tries and the Ministry of the Priest. The priest can very easily fall in the trap of viewing himself as be- ing different and even better than others. Yet, the only thing in which the priest truly differs from others is that he is given much more responsibility. And what he is most responsible for is to keep the unity within the community of faithful, all of whom are given gifts of the Holy Spirit and all those gifts differ. These gifts which
differ from one person to the oth- er mustn’t ever cause us to sepa- rate one from the other. Rather, it is precisely the role of the clergy, the bishop first of all, to foster unity among the community. When the bishop stands in the midst of the church, surrounded by the clergy and the faithful only then do we make up the commu- nity we know as the church. This is why the priest never speaks on behalf of the community in the first person singular, “I”, but in the plural “we”. Otherwise, the role of the priest becomes a form of cleri- calism which can be extremely hazardous to the community as it creates a chasm between the peo-
14