His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, witnessed the graduation ceremony of the 17th batch of the Orthodox Counseling Institute of the Diocese of Maadi, which is the first batch that studies the credit hours system.
The ceremony was held in the AnbaRewis Theater in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Abbasiya on Tuesday evening, November 29, 2022, in the presence of Their GracesAnba Daniel, Metropolitan of the Diocese, Secretary of the Holy Synod and Dean of the Institute, Anba Timothy, Bishop of Zagazig and Minya al-Qamh, and AnbaBavli, General Bishop of the Montazah Sector Churches in Alexandria, and Supervisor of Youth Service in Alexandria. It was also attended by the Institute’s faculty members and faculty members at the Counseling Institutes in Zagazig and Al-Montazah.
The ceremony included several speeches by the three bishops, the director of the institute Father Makarios Morris, and some of the graduates.
The speech of His Holiness Pope Tawadros stressed on three points:
Family is a blessing: to exist and grow in a blessed family or to help create a family is a great blessing.
The sanctity of the family is a duty: especially as we are facing many technological challenges as well asthe challenges of globalization.
Preserving and protecting the family is an important work: this is what the counseling institutes contribute to supporting through the spread of thought and counseling services.
His Holiness the Pope praised the presence of academic professors in counseling institutes, as this is considered a consolidation of the scientific foundations in counseling.
The graduates were 64, in addition to 22 devoted women and priests’ wives who finished their academic course as well.