On Monday and Tuesday, January 6 and 7, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present at St. George's Cathedral in Saint-Hubert. At the Divine Liturgy with the hierarch of Canada were presents by turn Fr. Daniel Sandu, Fr. Traian Petre and Fr. Constantin Lupașcu.

At the end of the Great Blessing of the Waters, addressing those present, the hierarch said:

"The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is the full revelation of the mystery of the true God as Trinity of Persons - the Father through the heavenly voice, the Spirit through the image of the dove, and the Son through the baptism performed and shown by St. John. If at the birth of the Lord God is revealed to the world as the One who identifies with everything that belongs to our limited human nature, at Theophany God opens us to His triadic existence, to the full understanding of what He is as much as possible to the human person. The baptism of each person is in fact the introduction into the cleansing Baptism of the Savior, in the sanctifying waters in view of the eternal life. In a symbolic but real way - says one of the commentators of the patristic period (Theodore de Mopsuestia) - by baptism the man is transferred from this life to the future life received in advance. St. Cyril of Alexandria speaks of a man's immersion in death, by will, beyond any desire to be by himself, beyond a life that gradually fades and becomes exhausted, in the depths of untold death that actually means to enter in life with God above all finite and limited life, from which man receives the power of life without death. What St. Cyril tells us is that only the baptism by the grace of its limitless given to us, removes the limits of life after the fall and gives us the possibility of understanding and living the eternal life in anticipation starting right here on earth.

In fact, through baptism, we begin to taste the signs of eternal life through the effects of baptism in us (Father Dumitru Stăniloae): 1. the death of the old man and the rebirth of the new; 2. the power of continuous spiritual growth that man receives in the form of Christian virtues; 3. the restoration of the image of God in man by bringing him out from the amorphous anonymity of the generic nature to the personal eternal responsibility; 4. Baptism is the door of entry into the Church in the life of communion similar to the trinitarian life.

The water of the Jordan as well as all the waters were sanctified by the descent of Christ the Savior in them, and they became a source of purification for all men. Christ descends to sanctify the waters so that the man who descends to be baptized will receive from there the holiness of God and thereby lay the premises of the divine life to which he was destined."

On the occasion of the Liturgy on the day of St. John the Baptist the hierarch said:

"St. John did a preparatory work for the coming of the Messiah - our Savior Jesus Christ. Although his baptism is similar to that of the Savior, there is a difference of substance which St. John himself recognizes. Repentance is the purpose of the first, and the gift of the Holy Spirit is the second. The first draws attention to the infinite mystery that is approaching and prepares the person to get rid of the sinful self, the second offers the gift of new life which is the discovery of the eternal Kingdom. John is the one who explicitly confesses firstly the divinity of Jesus Christ, a confession that will later be strengthened by St. Apostles, the Myrrh-bearer women and other contemporaries of Christ-related events. He understands the beauty, the grandeur and the role of his mission, but also its limitations. It goes to the threshold of eternity that only God Himself will open to the humanity through His Son."

In continuation a memorial service was performed.

At the end, the hierarch blessed those present with Great Holy Water.