In Closing Remarks at AAC, Met. Tikhon Reflects on All Saints of North America

Photo: oca.org

PHOENIX — On July 18, 2025, the sixth and final Plenary Session of the Orthodox Church in America's (OCA) 21st All-American Council was held in Phoenix, with closing remarks by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon being made before the closing hymn, "It Is Truly Meet," was sung to adjourn the council.

Notable moments in the council included the unveiling of the new icon to all the saints who have shone forth in North America, the election of Archimandrite Vasily (Permiakov) as Bishop of San Francisco and the West, and the official recognition of the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church–Ohrid Archbishopric.

Metropolitan Tikhon reflected on a liturgical movement that occurs during the vigil for the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross, when the bishop stands in the center of the church, lowers and elevates the Cross in all four cardinal directions.

"Even more precisely, it seems to me that we find ourselves at the point where the bishop has lowered the Cross to its lowest point and is preparing to raise it up once more," he said. "In the familiar Lvovsky setting of the melody sung at this occasion, there is a point of pause, a certain hovering between the moment the bishop holds the Cross steady at the lowest point and is about to raise it up."

Metropolitan Tikhon offers closing remarks at the 21st All-American Council. Photo: oca.org

The point of hovering is where the those in the Church find themselves today, he continued, and that in this moment of reflection we recognize that, whether ascending or descending, we are on the path of the Cross.

As opposed to the ups and downs of our daily lives and the "back and forth" of our secular existence, our movements in the Church follow the path of the Cross, which is ever-present.

With a new icon of all saints of North America, and having recently glorified St. Olga of Alaska, Metropolitan Tikhon was reminded of another image:

"Some of us here may remember the days when there was only one saint, our first saint, the venerable Herman of Alaska. Now, we ask intercessions of 19 saints who have shone forth in North America. We do not, of course, depend on the quantitative aspect of this reality. Rather, it seems to me that our present icon is a fitting image of whence we have come and also whither we are going. We all know of the icons of all saints of the venerable and more ancient Orthodox Churches, whose numbers are even larger than ours. Even without the centuries of ascetical and martyric witness of which our sisters have the benefit, it seems to me that it is our calling and our mission, now that we have been gathered together by Christ, to heed the words that conclude the Gospel reading from this morning: 'Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.'"

Previously, UOJ reported that His Eminence Archbishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West officially entered into retirement on July 15, the second day of the 21st All-American Council in Phoenix.

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