Congratulations to Protopresbyter Olexander Belya on His 70th Birthday

Your Very Reverend Father Olexander,

The clergy and faithful of the Slavic Orthodox Vicariate of America warmly congratulate you on your 70th birthday. On this significant day, we give thanks to God for the gift of your priestly ministry, for the many years you have devoted to the Church, to the temple, and to the people entrusted to your pastoral care, and for your unwavering pastoral zeal.

For many of us, you have become not only an experienced priest and mentor, but also a man whose faith, love for the Church, and devotion to his vocation are a living example. We prayerfully wish you strength, spiritual joy, peace, and the abundant grace of God, that the Lord may preserve you in good health for many more years and grant you the opportunity to continue your pastoral ministry.

With love and gratitude, we join in the words of your son, Archimandrite Alexander, who in his personal tribute speaks of you not only as a priest, but first and foremost as his father and his first spiritual mentor.

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Dear Father,

There are moments in every person’s life when we come to understand with particular clarity how much of who we are is connected with those who were beside us from our earliest days. In childhood, our parents become our first teachers: our mother through her daily presence, care, love, and warmth; our father through his example, his words, and his very life. And today, as you celebrate your 70th birthday, I am especially aware of how profound an influence you and Mother have had on us, your children.

For Mother’s love, for her patience and care, and for everything she has given to each of us, I also give thanks to God. But today I especially want to say to you, Father, thank you for becoming my first example of priestly ministry, love for the Church, and reverence for the temple. Much of what makes up my own life and ministry today, I first saw in you.

Our childhood was spent in Transcarpathia, where you and we were born. I remember those years well, and I remember the reverence and sense of responsibility with which you approached your priestly ministry. For me, as a child, so much of it seemed simply natural: the church, the divine services, prayer at home, the fragrance of incense, the ringing of the bells, and the care of the church and its grounds. Only with the passing of the years did I begin to understand what an enormous amount of work stood behind all of this, and how much love for the Church was required not simply to serve in a church, but to strive to make it a true house of God. What seemed natural to me in childhood, I now see as a testimony to your love for the Church and your deep sense of responsibility for everything entrusted to you.

I remember the construction of the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Khust. I remember the Church of the Dormition in the village of Krasna, which you restored and renewed despite the difficulties and the remoteness of the parish. I remember the Church of the Ascension in Steblivka, where, through your efforts, the central dome was installed, a sacristy was established, and the church was adorned with frescoes. I remember how you cared about every task, even the smallest one, that was necessary for the beauty and dignity of the church.

At the time, I could not fully understand why all of this was so important to you. Now I understand. You always taught us that for the Church we must give the very best. Not what is left over, not what is no longer needed elsewhere, but the very best—because the temple is the house of God, and everything we do for it should be an expression of our love and gratitude to God.

You taught us this not only through your words. We saw it in your life.

Your own life had been connected with the Church from childhood. Your parents—our grandparents—raised you with a love for God and the Church. While still very young, you sang and read in the choir, and over time that love became your life’s vocation. Then came theological seminary, theological academy, your ordination to the priesthood in 1981, and your first parish—the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Kvasy. From the very beginning of your pastoral ministry, the celebration of the divine services and the spiritual care of people were inseparably connected with caring for the church and striving to restore it to a worthy condition.

Perhaps this is why the words of the Savior, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21), have a special meaning for me. I saw where your treasure was. It was in the Church, in the temple, and in the people whom the Lord entrusted to your pastoral care.

In 2010, the Lord opened a new chapter of ministry before you—this time in the United States of America. From Transcarpathia, your path led you to Brooklyn, but although the place changed, what was essential remained the same: your love for the Church, your care for the temple, and your pastoral concern for people.

For more than fifteen years now, you have shepherded the parish of St. John the Forerunner in Brooklyn. Over the years of your ministry, the small parish has grown, and the church has been elevated to the status of a cathedral, becoming a spiritual home for a large and diverse community of people from different national and cultural backgrounds. You have become for them not simply a rector, but a spiritual father to whom they turn for counsel, prayer, and support. You have baptized many people, crowned husbands and wives in marriage, committed the departed to their final rest, comforted those who grieve, and helped those who were seeking their way to God. And most importantly, you have helped many people find that way.

I am grateful to you for teaching me, by being at your side, to understand that the priesthood is neither a position nor a title. It is, above all, responsibility, service, and a willingness to give oneself for others. The words of the Apostle Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), do not sound to me like an abstract admonition, but rather as a reminder that faith is transmitted not only through words. It is transmitted through one’s life. Today, you are for me the same father and the same priest whom I remember from childhood: a man for whom the temple, the divine services, and service to others have never been merely an obligation—they have been life itself.

Thank you, Father, for your example. From childhood, you taught me reverence for the temple, love for the divine services, responsibility for every task entrusted to me, and an understanding that service to the Church requires not only knowledge and zeal, but above all the complete giving of oneself. By your own example, you showed me how to treat people, how to care for a church, and how to labor for the Church without seeking recognition or gratitude for yourself. I am grateful to you for always striving to do more for the church and for its parishioners than was required by your immediate duties, giving to this your strength, your time, and your heart.

Today, Father Olexander, I wish you above all strength, peace, and joy in the Lord. May the Lord reward you for all the years of your labor, for every prayer, for every person whom you have helped, for every church that has been restored through your hands and efforts, and for all the good that often goes unnoticed by people but never goes unnoticed by God.

May the Lord grant you many more years of life and ministry, so that you may continue to be a spiritual father and mentor to many people. And may He grant us, your children, the grace to preserve in our own lives and pass on to others all that you have taught us—not only through your words, but above all through your example.

With love, gratitude, and prayer,

Your son,

Archimandrite Alexander

Vicar of the Slavic Orthodox Vicariate of America