Sunday, September 29, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present among the faithful at St. George's Cathedral in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. In the speech at the end of the service the hierarch said:

The Christian faith with its demands has very high standards. First and foremost, the One who has set and fulfilled them is the Son of God Himself Jesus Christ. The requirement of the Christian faith is to become 'the children of the Most High' (Luke 6:35). Each person who is born into this world is born with the image of God and then by faith and life reflected in the deeds grows and is fulfilled according to the likeness of God. And this restoration of man from his inability after falling to do so is given in the Church through the Holy Sacraments - Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Communion in Divine Liturgy, Repentance, Anointing of Sick as well as in the other services and blessings performed in the Church. God was merciful in Jesus Christ, His Son, through Whom He restored the potential of salvation and the acquisition of the kingdom of heaven.

The Orthodox Christian tradition and life is a mysterious but real participation in the grace of salvation and eternity. God has been gracious and generous in His work toward man. To be a Christian means following the exhortation of Christ the Savior: 'Be merciful, and your Father is merciful' (Luke 6:36).

The purpose of the Christian life is not just to be pious and to do good deeds in the human sense. The Christian life is the life of God that we are beginning to live here and now.

An essential element that shows the authenticity of one's Christian life is the unlimited love surpassing the binary kind of love exclusively built on the related family bond; the real Christian love is love that surpasses the immediate bond of blood, transfigures this bond through grace from within to make it all spiritual, serene, open and full of generosity and dedication.

Bishop Ioan Casian presented afterwards the main topics discussed at the Eastern Canada Deanery Meeting in the previous days. At the end the hierarch blessed those present.