Fr. Halík's mission trip in the USA continues with a service in New York

After the presentation in Washington, he visited New York and Philadelphia, where he presented the successes of the Orthodox mission in the Roma settlements in Slovakia.

The administrator of the Orthodox parish in Markovce, Fr. Martin Halík, is continuing his mission journey through the USA with his family. In Washington he presented his unique project, the “Christian Roma Mission”, for which he traded his IT career years ago for life in a Roma settlement. Then he visited other important centres of Orthodoxy on the East Coast. The Michalovce-Košice Eparchy reports on the course of the journey.

Meeting hierarchs and venerating a miraculous icon

In New York, Fr. Martin took part in the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in a church of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), where he received a blessing from Metropolitan Nikolaj. The journey then led to Philadelphia, to a Romanian Orthodox parish. There the pilgrims had the chance to venerate the myrrh-streaming Hawaiian Iveron icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, known around the world for its miracles.

Support for Slovak Roma settlements from Princeton and Los Angeles

An important point of the program was the presentation of the Roma mission in an American parish in Princeton (New Jersey). This community has already helped pay for the building of a new church in Bodružal in eastern Slovakia. The missionary reach of the journey was confirmed on Sunday as well, at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where a new priest, Fr. Bogdan, was ordained. He will then serve in Los Angeles, in a parish where part of the community is Roma.

Fr. Martin Halík, whose work has already helped hundreds of children get an education and dozens of fathers find work, sees the journey as a chance to make contacts that can help the Orthodox mission among the Roma grow worldwide.