Zagreb, (IKA) – The official welcoming ceremony of the earthly remains of St. Leopold Bogdan Mandić in front of the Zagreb cathedral on Wednesday, April 13, was attended by Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan Porfirije Perić of Zagreb-Ljubljana, who also participated in Vespers in the cathedral.
In an interview for the daily newspaper Večernji list, he spoke with admiration of the “multitude of people with such respect, with faith in God,” because when a person approaches a “Christ-like person” he also expresses and confirms his faith in Christ, he demonstrates that he is knows that his life does not only depend on current circumstances, politics, culture or science, although these are integral parts of life, but that it primarily depends on love and the will of God. In the faith in which we recognize this love, in our own lives we become able respond to all those areas, from science to politics, and even misunderstandings among people, from those in the family to those in the village, city, region and at the international level, explained Metropolitan Porfirije, and added: “The faith that I had the opportunity to see this day simply delighted me! I was gratified and touched.”
He said that since the saints are the fulfilled Gospel of Christ, they are awakened Christs because He appears through them. This requires boundless love and tranquility, which St. Leopold had. It is precisely for this reason that he is a saint of God and as such is not merely someone who represents us before God in his prayers but also is a genuine model for us, today’s Christians, as well as the leadership of the Churches, he said, and commented on the fact that St. Leopold prayed for the unity of Christians. “Yes, in precisely this love and tranquility toward Christ, he yearned for the unity of all Christians, for which he prayed, for which he worked, which is none other than the fulfillment of Christ’s words for all to be one. Therefore, his arrival at this particular time is a great blessing for all of us because his traveling, invisible mystical experience certainly affects all those who venerate him,” he said, and noted that this saint is also venerated by Orthodox Christians. As he explained: “Every enlightened, virtuous person is a saint, regardless of the Church to whom he belongs. He is consolation and spiritual support for every person. That is how I experience him personally. This concerns everyone because a saint is a universal person. He is a saint of God, who transcends the boundaries of time and space, national and state borders, as well as every other, because by belonging to Christ, he belongs to all people. He loves all people equally and, therefore, is a universal man who belongs to all people, and it is up to us to accept this as best we can.”